Jean-Claude Delamétherie (also ''de La Métherie'', ''de Lamétherie'', 4 September 1743 – 1 July 1817) was a French

mineralogist Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the proces ...

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid, liquid, and gaseous matter that constitutes Earth and other terrestrial planets, as well as the processes that shape them. Geologists usually study geology, earth science, or geophysics, althou ...

and

paleontologist Paleontology (), also spelled palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of life that existed prior to, and sometimes including, the start of the Holocene epoch (roughly 11,700 years before present). It includes the study of fossi ...

Career

Delamétherie was born in

La Clayette La Clayette () is a commune in the east-central French department of Saône-et-Loire. Geography La Clayette is situated in the southernmost part of Burgundy, north of the historical province of Beaujolais. It belongs to an area designated since ...

. He edited ''Journal de physique, de chimie, d'histoire naturelle et des arts'' from 1785. He was elected member of

Leopoldina Leopoldina may refer to: * Colônia Leopoldina, a Brazilian municipality in the state of Alagoa * Leopoldina, Minas Gerais, a Brazilian municipality in the state of Minas Gerais * Maria Leopoldina of Austria (1797-1826), consort of emperor Pedro I ...

in 1792. He was a supporter of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

, but opposed to the

Jacobins , logo = JacobinVignette03.jpg , logo_size = 180px , logo_caption = Seal of the Jacobin Club (1792–1794) , motto = "Live free or die"(french: Vivre libre ou mourir) , successor = Pa ...

, and was forced to leave Paris during the

Reign of Terror The Reign of Terror (french: link=no, la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions took place in response to revolutionary fervour, ...

, interrupting publication of the ''Journal de physique'' until 1797. Numerous

minerals In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid chemical compound with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.John P. Rafferty, ed. (2 ...

were first systematically described by Delamétherie. In 1795, Delamétherie first described the

Lherzolite Lherzolite is a type of ultramafic igneous rock. It is a coarse-grained rock consisting of 40 to 90% olivine along with significant orthopyroxene and lesser amounts of calcic chromium-rich clinopyroxene. Minor minerals include chromium and alu ...

(which he named after the site of its discovery,

Étang de Lers Étang de Lers or Lake of Lers is a natural lake in the Ariège department (France). Geology Lherzolite Lherzolite is a type of ultramafic igneous rock. It is a coarse-grained rock consisting of 40 to 90% olivine along with significant ...

in the Pyrenees). Delamétherie was an advocate of

transmutation of species Transmutation of species and transformism are unproven 18th and 19th-century evolutionary ideas about the change of one species into another that preceded Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection. The French ''Transformisme'' was a term used ...

.Corbey, Raymond. (2005). ''The Metaphysics of Apes: Negotiating the Animal-Human Boundary''. Cambridge University Press. p. 62. He was an atheist and materialist.Corsi, Pietro ''Idola Tribus: Lamarck, Politics and Religion in the Early Nineteenth Century''. In Aldo Fasolo. (2012). ''The Theory of Evolution and Its Impact''. Springer. pp. 11-39. Delamétherie held similar views to

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, chevalier de Lamarck (1 August 1744 – 18 December 1829), often known simply as Lamarck (; ), was a French naturalist, biologist, academic, and soldier. He was an early proponent of the idea that biologi ...

but differed on his views on the history of earth. According to science historian

Pietro Corsi Pietro Corsi (born 20 July 1948) is an Italian historian of science. Biography From 1967, Pietro Corsi studied at the Faculty of Philosophy, The University of Pisa, and was also a pupil of the Class of Letters, The Scuola Normale Superiore, Pis ...

Delamétherie believed in a primeval ocean in which rocks and life were formed through countless ages thanks to processes of crystallization, and maintained that all life forms known to man developed from a restricted number of prototypes equally generated by specific forms of crystallization.

Delamétherie was supportive of the

inheritance of acquired characteristics Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also calle ...

and suspected that Lamarck had copied some of his ideas.

Publications

* ''Principes de la philosophie naturelle'', 1777, 2nd ed. 1787. * ''Vues physiologiques sur l’organisation animale et végétale'', 1780
online
. * ''De la nature des êtres existans'', 1805
online
. * ''Théorie de la Terre'', 1795, 2nd ed. 1797; German translation (1797) ''Theorie der Erde'', 1797
Bd. 1 online
. * ''Leçons de minéralogie'', 1811. * ''Leçons de géologie'', 1816.

References

* Pietro Corsi: ''Lamarck. Genèse et enjeux du transformisme. 1770-1830'', CNRS Édition, 2001, .

External links

* de la Métherie's (1797–98
''Theorie der Erde'' (3 vols.)
- digital facsimile from the

Linda Hall Library The Linda Hall Library is a privately endowed American library of science, engineering and technology located in Kansas City, Missouri, sitting "majestically on a urban arboretum." It is the "largest independently funded public library of scien ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delametherie, JeanClaude 1743 births 1817 deaths French atheists French geologists French materialists French mineralogists Proto-evolutionary biologists