1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beyrich, Heinrich Ernst von

BEYRICH, HEINRICH ERNST VON (1815–1896), German geologist, was born at Berlin on the 31st of August 1815, and educated at the university in that city, and afterwards at Bonn, where he studied under Goldfuss and Nöggerath. He obtained his degree of Ph.D. in 1837 at Berlin, and was subsequently employed in the mineralogical museum of the university, becoming director of the palaeontological collection in 1857, and director of the museum in 1875. He was one of the founders of the German Geological Society in 1848. He early recognized the value of palaeontology in stratigraphical work; and he made important researches in the Rhenish mountains, in the Harz and Alpine districts. In later years he gave special attention to the Tertiary strata, including the Brown Coal of North Germany. In 1854 he proposed the term Oligocene for certain Tertiary strata intermediate between the Eocene and Miocene; and the term is now generally adopted. In 1865 he was appointed professor of geology and palaeontology in the Berlin University, where he was eminently successful as a teacher; and when the Prussian Geological Survey was instituted in 1873 he was appointed co-director with Wilhelm Hauchecorne (1828–1900). He published Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Versteinerungen des rheinischen Übergangs-gebirges (1837); Über einige böhmische Trilobiten (1845); Die Conchylien des norddeutschen Tertiärgebirges (1853–1857). He died on the 9th of July 1896.