1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Quenstedt, Friedrich August von

QUENSTEDT, FRIEDRICH AUGUST VON (1809–1889), German geologist and palaeontologist, was born at Eisleben in Saxony on the 9th of July 1809. He was educated at Berlin, and after having acted as assistant in the mineralogical museum he was appointed professor of mineralogy and geognosy in the university of Tübingen in 1837, a post which he occupied until his death. His earlier work related chiefly to crystallography and mineralogy, on which subjects he published text-books that were widely used. He became distinguished for his researches on palaeontology, and especially for those on the fossils of the Jurassic system. The museum at Tübingen owed its establishment to his exertions. He died at Tübingen on the 21st of December 1889.

His chief publications were: Method der Krystallographie (1840); Das Flözgebirge Württembergs (1843); Petrefactenkunde Deutschlands (7 vols. and atlases, 1846–84); Die Cephalopoden (1846–49); Handbuch der Petrefactenkunde (2 vols., 1852, 3rd ed. 1882–85); Der Jura (2 vols., 1858); Handbuch der Mineralogie (1855, 3rd ed. 1877); Die Ammoniten des Schwäbischen Jura (1883–84). Obituary by W. T. Blanford, Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xlvi., 1890.