Charles Dietrich Eberhard Konig or Karl Dietrich Eberhard König, KH (1774 – 6 September 1851) was a German naturalist. He was born in Brunswick and educated at

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a college town, university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the Capital (political), capital of Göttingen (district), the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, t ...

. He came to

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at the end of 1800 to organize the collections of

Queen Charlotte Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Sophia Charlotte; 19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818) was Queen of Great Britain and of Ireland as the wife of King George III from their marriage on 8 September 1761 until the union of the two kingdoms ...

. On the completion of this work he became assistant to Dryander, librarian to

Joseph Banks Sir Joseph Banks, 1st Baronet, (19 June 1820) was an English naturalist, botanist, and patron of the natural sciences. Banks made his name on the 1766 natural-history expedition to Newfoundland and Labrador. He took part in Captain James ...

. In 1807, he succeeded

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as assistant keeper of the department of natural history in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

. On the death of his superior in 1813, he took his place as keeper. He later became keeper of geology and mineralogy, and turned his attention to minerals and fossils, arranging the recently acquired collection of Mr. Greville. He retained the post until his sudden death in

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in 1851. Konig anglicized his name upon his appointment as assistant keeper in 1807. In 1837, following a

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report on the British Museum, the Department of Natural History was divided into three branches, with Konig being put in charge of the Mineralogical and Geological branch. Besides writing various papers for journals, Konig was associated with John Sims in the issue of ''

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'' from 1805 to 1807. He described many

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s in the British Museum in a classic work entitled ''Icones fossilium sectiles'' (1820–1825).

References

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Konig, Charles 1774 births 1851 deaths Scientists from Braunschweig People from Brunswick-Lüneburg Fellows of the Royal Society Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences German naturalists 19th-century German geologists Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery Employees of the British Museum University of Göttingen alumni German emigrants to the Kingdom of Great Britain