1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dumont, André Hubert

DUMONT, ANDRÉ HUBERT (1809–1857), Belgian geologist, was born at Liége on the 15th of February 1809. His first work was a masterly Mémoire on the geology of the province of Liége published in 1832. A few years later he became professor of mineralogy and geology and afterwards rector in the university of Liége. His attention was now given to the mineralogical and stratigraphical characters of the geological formations in Belgium—and the names given by him to many subdivisions of Cretaceous and Tertiary ages have been adopted. His Mémoire sur les terrains ardennais et rhénan de l’Ardenne, du Brabant et du Condroz (1847–1848) is notable for the care with which the mineral characters of the strata were described, but the palaeontological characters were insufficiently considered, and neither the terms “Silurian” nor “Devonian” were adopted. During twenty years he laboured at the preparation of a geological map of Belgium (1849). He spared no pains to make his work as complete as possible, examining on foot almost every area of importance in the country. Journeying to the more southern parts of Europe, he investigated the shores of the Bosphorus, the mountains of Spain and other tracts, and gradually gathered materials for a geological map of Europe: a work of high merit which was “one of the first serious attempts to establish on a larger scale the geological correlation of the various countries of Europe.” The Geological Society of London awarded him in 1840 the Wollaston medal. He died at Liége on the 28th of February 1857.

See Memoir by Major-General J. E. Portlock in Address to Geol. Soc. (London, 1858).