Home > Oswald Heer

He was educated as a clergyman and took holy orders, and he also graduated as doctor of philosophy and medicine. Early in life his interest was aroused in entomology, on which subject he acquired special knowledge, and later he took up the study of plants and became one of the pioneers in palaeobotany, distinguished for his researches on the Miocene flora.

In 1851 he became professor of botany in the university of Zürich, and he directed his attention to the Tertiary plants and insects of Switzerland. For some time he was director of the botanic garden at Zürich. In 1863 (with William PengellyWilliam Pengelly ( 1812- 1894) was a geologist and early archaeologist who was one of the first to contribute proof that the Biblical chronology of the earth calculated by Archbishop James Ussher was wrong. Pengelly excavated at Kent's Cavern in Dorset in, Phil. Trans., 1862) he investigated the plant-remains from the lignite-deposits of Bovey Tracey in Devonshire, regarding them as of Miocene age; but they are now classed as EoceneThe Eocene epoch (55-37 mya) is a major division of the geologic timescale and the second epoch of the Tertiary period in the Cenozoic era. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene epoch. The start of.

Heer also reported on the Miocene flora of ArcticThe Arctic is the area around the Earth's North Pole. The Arctic includes parts of Russia, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Lapland, and Norway (including Svalbard), as well as the Arctic Ocean. The 10°C (50°F) July isotherm is commonly used to define the borde regions, on the plants of the Pleistocene lignites of Dürnten on lake Zürich, and on the cereals of some of the lake-dwellings (Die Pflanzen der Pfahlbauten, 1866).

During a great part of his career he was hampered by slender means and ill-health, but his services to science were acknowledged in 1873 when the Geological Society of LondonThe Geological Society of London is a learned society based in the United Kingdom with the aim of "investigating the mineral structure of the Earth". It is the oldest geological society in the world. The Society was founded in 1807. It was partly the outc awarded to him the Wollaston medal. Dr Heer died at LausanneLausanne is a city in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, on the shores of Lake Geneva (French: Lac Leman , across from Evian-les-Bains, France, and about 60 km northeast of Geneva. It is the capital of the canton of Vaud. Population (as of December on the 27th of September 1883.

He published Flora Tertiaria Helvetiae (3 vols., 1855-1859); Die Urwelt der Schweiz (1865), and Flora fossilis Arctica (1868-1883).

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. 1911 Britannica