Frederick Augustus Ludwig Karl Wilhelm Genth (May 17, 1820 – February 2, 1893) was a German-American

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a graduated scientist trained in the study of chemistry, or an officially enrolled student in the field. Chemists study the composition of ...

, specializing in analytical chemistry and mineralogy.

Biography

Frederick Augustus Genth was born in

Wächtersbach The town of Wächtersbach () is part of the Main-Kinzig-Kreis in Hesse, Germany. In 1982, the town hosted the 22nd ''Hessentag'' state festival. Location Wächtersbach lies between the Spessart and the Vogelsberg Mountains in the middle Kinzig ...

Hesse-Cassel The Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel (), spelled Hesse-Cassel during its entire existence, also known as the Hessian Palatinate (), was a state of the Holy Roman Empire. The state was created in 1567 when the Landgraviate of Hesse was divided upon ...

on May 17, 1820. He studied at the

Hanau Hanau () is a city in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is 25 km east of Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main and part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main, Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its railway Hanau Hauptbahnhof, station is a ma ...

gymnasium and at the

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

, under

Justus von Liebig Justus ''Freiherr'' von Liebig (12 May 1803 – 18 April 1873) was a Germans, German scientist who made major contributions to the theory, practice, and pedagogy of chemistry, as well as to agricultural and biology, biological chemistry; he is ...

Giessen Giessen, spelled in German (), is a town in the Germany, German States of Germany, state () of Hesse, capital of both the Giessen (district), district of Giessen and the Giessen (region), administrative region of Giessen. The population is appro ...

, and finally under

Christian Gerling Christian Ludwig Gerling (10 July 1788 – 15 January 1864) studied under Carl Friedrich Gauss, obtaining his doctorate in 1812 for a thesis entitled: ''Methodi proiectionis orthographicae usum ad calculos parallacticos facilitandos explicavit ...

(physics) and

Robert Bunsen Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (; 30 March 1811 – 16 August 1899) was a German chemist. He investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium (in 1860) and rubidium (in 1861) with the physicist Gustav Kirchhoff. The Bu ...

(chemistry) at

Marburg Marburg (; ) is a college town, university town in the States of Germany, German federal state () of Hesse, capital of the Marburg-Biedenkopf Districts of Germany, district (). The town area spreads along the valley of the river Lahn and has ...

, where he received the degree of

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

in 1846. For three years (1845–1848) he acted as assistant to Bunsen. In 1848, Genth immigrated to the United States. He settled in Philadelphia and organized an analytical laboratory. In 1872 he was appointed professor of chemistry and

mineralogy Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical mineralogy, optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifact (archaeology), artifacts. Specific s ...

at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

. He resigned his professorship in 1888, and re-established his laboratory. He also held the office of chemist to the Geological Survey of Pennsylvania and also to the board of agriculture of that state. Genth was a member of many scientific societies in the United States: he was elected in 1872 to membership in the

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...

; he was a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...

(elected 1886), one of the founders of the

American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all ...

, and its president in 1880, and a fellow of the Boston Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Benjamin Silliman, Jr. Benjamin Silliman Jr. (December 4, 1816 – January 14, 1885) was a professor of chemistry at Yale University and instrumental in developing the petroleum industry. His father Benjamin Silliman Sr., also a famous Yale chemist, developed the pro ...

, alluded to Genth as having "no superior in this country as an analytical chemist."

Publications

Genth contributed many and careful analyses of minerals to the literature of chemistry. His name is associated with the ammonia cobalt bases which he discovered in 1846, and, in joint authorship with

Wolcott Gibbs Wolcott Gibbs (March 15, 1902 – August 16, 1958) was an American editor, humorist, theatre critic, playwright and writer of short stories, who worked for ''The New Yorker'' magazine from 1927 until his death. He is notable for his 1936 parody ...

(1822–1908), he contributed to the "Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge" a monograph on "Researches on the Ammonia-Cobalt Bases" (Washington, 1856). Genth is the author of 102 separate papers on subjects in chemistry and mineralogy. Of these, about 30 were not related to mineralogy. Among the non-mineralogical papers were papers on fertilizers, which were related to his work for the Pennsylvania Board of Agriculture. He also published "Tabellarische Übersicht der wichtigsten Reactionen welche Basen in Salzen zeigen" (Marburg, 1845), also the same in relation to "Acids" (1845); "Corundum" (in ''American Philosophical Society Proceedings'', 1873); "Minerals of North Carolina," being appendix "C" of the ''Report on the Geology of North Carolina'' (Raleigh, 1875); also ''First and Second Preliminary Reports on the Mineralogy of Pennsylvania'' (Harrisburg, 1875/6), and ''Minerals and Mineral Localities of North Carolina'' (Raleigh, 1881).

Minerals discovered and characterized

Genth was first to describe and characterize a number of new minerals, often ores of

tellurium Tellurium is a chemical element; it has symbol Te and atomic number 52. It is a brittle, mildly toxic, rare, silver-white metalloid. Tellurium is chemically related to selenium and sulfur, all three of which are chalcogens. It is occasionally fou ...

. Among those still recognized today are:

melonite Melonite is a telluride of nickel; it is a metallic mineral. Its chemical formula is NiTe2. It is opaque and white to reddish-white in color, oxidizing in air to a brown tarnish. It was first described from the Melones and Stanislaus mine in ...

calaverite Calaverite, or gold telluride, is an uncommon telluride (chemistry), telluride of gold, a metallic mineral with the chemical formula AuTe2, with approximately 3% of the gold Silver telluride, replaced by silver. It was first discovered in Calave ...

, cosalite, schirmerite,

coloradoite Coloradoite, also known as mercury telluride (HgTe), is a rare telluride ore associated with metallic deposit (especially gold and silver). Gold usually occurs within tellurides, such as coloradoite, as a high-finess native metal. The quest fo ...

, montanite, kerrite, maconite, willcoxite, dudleyite, endlichite, landsfordite,

nesquehonite Nesquehonite is a mineral of magnesium carbonate (). It represents the trihydrate of magnesium carbonate, and has the total formula . It was described in 1890 by F. A. Genth and S. L. Penfield and is named after its type locality of Nesquehoni ...

phosphuranylite Phosphuranylite is a uranyl phosphate mineral with formula KCa(H3O)3(UO2)7(PO4)4O4·8(H2O). It was first described in 1879 by Frederick Augustus Genth, from an occurrence in the Flat Rock pegmatite in Mitchell County, North Carolina Mitchell ...

, and

penfieldite Penfieldite is a rare lead hydroxychloride mineral from the class of halides. It was named after Samuel Lewis Penfield. It has been a valid species before the founding of IMA, and was first published in 1892. It had been grandfathered, meaning t ...

Family

He married twice, the first time to Karolina Jäger (1847), with whom he had three children, the second time to Paulina Fischer (1852), with whom he had nine children. He died in Philadelphia on February 2, 1893.

Notes

References