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father, a merchant, very early, and was expected to succeed him in 
the business; but his predilections for science, particularly for ma- 
thematics, had marked him out for higher destinies. 
He began his studies, 1796-98, at Halle, and continued them in 
the mining institution at Freyberg. 
We find him in 1802 at Vienna, occupied in describing the mi- 
neral cabinet of the banker Von der Null, where he first conceived 
those views which he afterwards developed in his system of mine- 
ralogy. 
His fondness for geology and the art of mining induced him to 
visit Styria, Saltzburg, Carinthia, Carniola, Hungary and Transyl- 
vania, &e., and he received from the Austrian Government, in 1810, 
a commission to examine those parts of Passau, Austria, and Bohe- 
mia, where porcelain clay is found. 
Having thus attracted the notice of the Archduke John, and un- 
dertaken a journey to Styria in 1811, he was nominated Professor 
of Mineralogy inthe Johanneum, at Gratz. 
In 1818 he visited England with Count Bretiner, who had been 
his pupil at Gratz; his conferences at Edinburgh with Jameson, 
whom he had known at Freyberg, made a strong impression on 
the Professor, in favour of what he called the “ natural-history- 
system” of mineralogy, which he in part adopted, and first made 
known to British mineralogists in 18Z0*, and afterwards more fully 
explained in 1821+ and 1822¢. 
On the death of Werner, in 1817, he was called to the chair of 
Mineralogy in the Mining Academy of Freyberg; but in 1826 
went to reside at Vienna, as Professor of Mineralogy, and Super- 
intendent of the Imperial Cabinet. In 1804 he published a volume 
of practical importance, containing “A Detailed Account, illus- 
trated with a Ground Plan, of the Mines and Mining Operations 
at Himmelsfiirst, near Freyberg.” In this work he describes, not 
only the geological relations and mineral products of these mines, 
but gives full details as to the methods of working them ; their 
buildings and machinery, ventilation and drainages, preparation of 
the ores, receipts, expenditure, &c. 
His great work on Mineralogy, or “the Natural History of the 
* Third edition of his System of Mineralogy. 
+ Manual of Mineralogy. t Encyclopedia Britannica, 
