Bernhard von Cotta

Carl Bernhard von Cotta, known as Bernhard von Cotta (24 October 180814 September 1879), was a German geologist.

Life

He was born in a forester's lodge at Kleine Zillbach, Meiningen, near Eisenach, the son of Heinrich von Cotta, founder of the Tharandt Forestry Academy near Dresden. He was educated first at the Tharnadt Academcy, then at the Bergakademie Freiberg and the University of Heidelberg. Botany at first attracted him and he was one of the earliest to use the microscope in determining the structure of fossil plants. Later on he gave his attention to geology, to the study of ore-deposits, of rocks and metamorphism. one of the first comprehensive works on the subject issued in the English language, which gave great impetus to the study of rocks in Britain.

He also worked with Professor Carl Friedrich Naumann to publish geological maps of the region of Saxony between 1836 and 1847. He was an early supporter of Darwinism.

He died in Freiberg, Saxony.

His daughter, Alice von Cotta, born in 1842, worked at Bedford College, London, and later as a school principal at the women's school Victoria-Lyceum in Berlin.

Commemorations

Bernhard-von-Cotta-Straße in Freiberg, the location of the present Bergakadamie Freiberg, Inst. of Geology, is named after him. The Dorsum Von Cotta, a wrinkle ridge on the Moon, is named after him.

Publications Die Dendrolithen, 1832 Geognostische Karte von Sachsen, 1832–1845 Geognostische Wanderungen, Bd. 1–2, 1836–1838 Anleitung zum Studium der Geologie und Geognosie, 1839 Geognostische Karte von Thüringen, 1843–1848 Gangstudien, Bd. 1–4, 1850–1862 Briefe über Humboldt's Kosmos, 1848–1860 Gesteinslehre, Bd. 1–2, 1855, 1866 (englisch) Lehre von den Flözformationen, 1856 Deutschlands Boden, sein geologischer Bau und dessen Einwirkung auf das Leben des Menschen, Bd. 1–2, 1854 u. 1858 Lehre von den Erzlagerstätten, Bd.1–2, 1859–1861, 1870 (englisch) Katechismus der Geologie, 1861 Geologie der Gegenwart, 1865 Der Altai, sein geologischer Bau und seine Erzlagerstätten, 1871 Geologische Bilder, 1876