- Adolphe d'Archiac
Etienne Jules Adolphe Desmier de Saint-Simon, Vicomte d'Archiac (
September 24 ,1802 -December 24 ,1868 ), was a Frenchgeologist andpaleontologist .Early life
He was born at
Reims and educated in theMilitary School of St. Cyr , and served for nine years as acavalry officer until 1830, when he retired from the service. Prior to this he had published an historical romance; but nowgeology came to occupy his chief attention. In his earlier scientific works, which date from 1835, he described theTertiary andCretaceous formations ofFrance ,Belgium andEngland , and dealt especially with the distribution offossils geographically and in sequence. Later on he investigated theCarboniferous ,Devonian andSilurian formations.Magnum opus His great work was "Histoire des Progrès de la Géologie de 1834 à 1859", published in eight volumes (1847-1860). In 1853 the
Wollaston Medal of theGeological Society of London was awarded to him. In the same year, withJules Haime (1824-1856), he published a monograph on theNummulitic formation ofIndia . In 1857 he was elected a member of theFrench Academy of Sciences , and in 1861 he was appointed professor of paleontology in theMuséum National d'Histoire Naturelle inParis . Of later works his "Paléontologie Stratigraphique", in three vols. (1864-1865); his "Géologie et paléontologie" (1866); and his paleontological contributions to de Tchihatcheff's "Asie mineure" (1866), may be specially mentioned.Death
While suffering from severe depression he committed
suicide by throwing himself into theRiver Seine onChristmas Eve , 1868.Further reading
* cite encyclopedia
last = Birembaut
first = Arthur
title = Archiac, Étienne-Jules-Adolphe Desmier (or Dexmier) de Saint-Simon, Vicompte d'
encyclopedia =Dictionary of Scientific Biography
volume = 1
pages = 209-212
publisher = Charles Scribner's Sons
location = New York
date = 1970
isbn = 0684101149----
*1911
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