GRUNER, GOTTLIEB SIGMUND (1717-1778)

This article appears in Volume V12, Page 641 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: GRA-GUI

GRUNER, GOTTLIEB SIGMUND (1717-1778) , the author of the first connected attempt to describe in detail the snowy mountains of Switzerland. His father, Johann Rudolf Gruner (168o-1761), was pastor of Trachselwald, in the Bernese Emmenthal (1705), and later (1725) of

Burgdorf

BURGDORF (Fr. Berthoud)

, and a

great

GREAT

collector of information relating to historical and scientific matters; his

great

GREAT

Thesaurus

THESAURUS (Gr. B17o-avp6s)

topographico-historicus lotius ditionis Bernensis (4 vols. folio, 17291730) still remains in MS., but in 1732 he published a small

work

WORK

entitled Deliciae urbis Bernae, while he possessed an extensive cabinet of natural history objects. Naturally such tastes had a great

influence

INFLUENCE (Late Lat. influentia, from influere, to flow in)

on the mind of his son, who was born at Trachselwald, and educated by his father and at 'the Latin school at

Burgdorf

BURGDORF (Fr. Berthoud)

, not going to Berne much before 1736, when he published a dissertation on the use of fire by the

heathen

HEATHEN

. In 1739 he qualified as a notary, in 1741 became the archivist of Hesse-Homburg, and in 1743 accompanied Prince Christian of Anhalt-Schaumburg to Silesia and the university of

Halle

. He returned to his native

land

LAND

before 1749, when he obtained a post at Thorberg, being transferred in 1764 to Landshut and Fraubrunnen. It was in 176o that he published in 3 vols. at Berne his

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

work

WORK

, Die Eisgebirge des Schweizerlandes (bad French

translation

TRANSLATION

by M. de Keralio, Paris, 1770). The first two volumes are filled by a detailed description of the snowy Swiss mountains, based not so much on personal experience as on older works, and a very large number of communications received by Gruner from numerous friends; the third volume deals with glaciers in general, and their various properties. Though in many respects imperfect, Gruner's book sums up all that was known on the subject in his day, and forms the starting-point for later writers. The illustrations are very curious and interesting. In 1778 he republished (nominally in London, really at Berne) much of the information contained in his larger work, but thrown into the form of letters, supposed to be written in 1776 from various spots, under the title of Reisen dutch die merkwurdigsten Gegenden Helvetiens (2 vols.). (W. A. B. C.)

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