Christoph Wilhelm Jacob Gatterer (December 2, 1759 – September 11, 1838) was a German cameralist and natural historian born in

Göttingen Göttingen (, , ; nds, Chöttingen) is a university city in Lower Saxony, central Germany, the capital of the eponymous district. The River Leine runs through it. At the end of 2019, the population was 118,911. General information The ori ...

. He was the son of

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

Johann Christoph Gatterer (1727–1799). He studied

natural sciences Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...

and mineralogy in

, earning his degree in 1778. In 1787 he became a professor of

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...

forestry Forestry is the science and craft of creating, managing, planting, using, conserving and repairing forests, woodlands, and associated resources for human and environmental benefits. Forestry is practiced in plantations and natural stands. ...

and technology at the

University of Heidelberg } Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg, (german: Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg; la, Universitas Ruperto Carola Heidelbergensis) is a public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, ...

. He later became a professor of

diplomatics Diplomatics (in American English, and in most anglophone countries), or diplomatic (in British English), is a scholarly discipline centred on the critical analysis of documents: especially, historical documents. It focuses on the conventions, p ...

, and in 1803 was appointed director of the ''Schloßgarten'' in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

. Gatterer was the author of ''Anleitung den Harz und andere Bergwerke mit Nutzen zu bereisen'' (1785–1794), a five-volume work on the

Harz Mountains The Harz () is a highland area in northern Germany. It has the highest elevations for that region, and its rugged terrain extends across parts of Lower Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The name ''Harz'' derives from the Middle High German ...

that placed emphasis on the region's natural history.

References

The Mineralogical Record
(biography)

(bibliography, in German) German naturalists Scientists from Göttingen Heidelberg University faculty 1759 births 1838 deaths Members of the Göttingen Academy of Sciences and Humanities Cameralists {{Germany-scientist-stub