140 Ohituary — Karl H. F. Roseoihusch. 



GEHEIMRATH PROF. KARL HARRY FERDINAND 



ROSENBUSCH. 



Born 1836. Died Januaey 20, 1914. 



Although the subject of this notice was generally known in this 

 country under the name of Meifirich llosenbusch, I can find no 

 authoritj^ for the use of this Christian name. His official designation 

 was as given above, while in all his published writings and private 

 letters, down to the year 1900, he subscribed himself H. liosenbusch, 

 after that date using the name ' Harry ' only. 



The distinguished petrographer was born at Einbeck in Hanover 

 in the year 1836, and was educated at the gymnasium of Hildesheim 

 and the Universities of Gottingen, Freiburg, and Heidelberg, 

 acquiring a taste for mineralogical studies at the last-mentioned seat 

 of learning under Professor Blum. Before taking his doctor's degree, 

 however, liosenbusch accepted a post as tutor in a Portuguese family 

 and proceeded to South America, and it was at this time probably 

 that he made that wide acquaintance with foreign languages by 

 which he was so greatly distinguished in after life. In 1868 he was 

 back again in Freiburg, where he took his degree and in the 

 following year became a privat-docent. 



Rosenbusch's residence in Freiburg had very important results not 

 only in his own career but in the development of petrographical 

 science. The Professor of Mineralogy in the University of Freiburg 

 at that day was Heinricli Fischer, who had not only made himself 

 acquainted with all that had been previously done in applying the 

 microscope to the study of rocks, but had brought togetlier a large 

 collection of rock-sections upon which he had based his Kritische 

 milcroshopisch miner alogische Studien and his well-known treatise on 

 Nephrite and Jade. These sections and Fischer's extensive library 

 wei'e placed at Hosenbusch's service, as he gratefully acknowledged, 

 and soon the enthusiastic pupil was able to carry the work much 

 farther than the master had done. Rosenbusch recognized the 

 important fact that the exact determination of the minerals seen in 

 a rock-section must be based on rigid optical metliods, and he set to 

 work to make the improvements in the microscope which would 

 enable such methods to be employed. In 1873 Hosenbusch's epoch- 

 making work on the rock-forming minerals made its appearance, to 

 be followed in 1877 by his great treatise on rocks. Of the far- 

 reaching influence of these works and of the successive editions of 

 them it is unnecessary to speak — their praise is in all the schools. 



After the war of 1 870 the German Imperial Government determined 

 to p)repare a geological map of Alsace and Lorraine, and liosenbusch 

 was ap[)ointed a member of the Survey and at the same time extra- 

 ordinary professor in the University of Sirasburg; this led to the 

 publication of his well-known memoir on the Andlau granite and the 

 contact metamorphism produced by its extrusion. 



But in 1878, by his appointment to the full professorship of Geology 

 at Heidelberg, Rosenbusch reached the goal of his ambitions, and soon 



