The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Becke, Friedrich

BECKE, Friedrich, Austrian mineralogist: b. Prague, 31 Dec. 1855. After studying at Vienna, where he specialized in the natural sciences, he became there a lecturer on geology. In 1882 he was appointed professor at the University of Czernowitz. Eight years later he received a similar appointment at Prague, but soon after went to Vienna, where he became professor of mineralogy, succeeding Tschermak as such, of whose periodical Mineralogische und Petrographische Mittheilungen he became editor. He has published many papers on the science of geology and mineralogy, but he is best known on account of his researches in the field of rock-forming minerals and how they may be determined by means of their light-refractive properties. The results of these studies were published by the Vienna Academy (1893).