The New International Encyclopædia/Keller, Ferdinand (archæologist)

KELLER, kĕl'lẽr, Ferdinand (1800-81). A Swiss archæologist, born at Marthalen. He studied theology and natural sciences at Zurich, Lausanne, and Paris. In 1831 he was made an instructor at Zurich, and secretary of the Society for Natural Research, and in this capacity he published various works on naked rock soil and vent-holes. The discovery of the sepulchral mound at Burghölzli led to the founding of an antiquarian society of which Keller was long president, and of a museum, the growth of which was largely due to him. His most important discovery was the pile-dwelling at Obermeilen in the winter of 1853. Besides his articles on this subject in the proceedings of the Antiquarian Society he published: Bauriss des Klosters Sankt Gallen vom Jahr 820 (1844), and an archæological map of Eastern Switzerland (1874). Consult: Meyer von Knonau, Lebensabriss von Ferdinand Keller (Zurich, 1882); and Lee, The Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, and Other Parts of Europe, by Dr. F. Keller (2d ed., London, 1878).