Stanisław Staszic: An Early Surveyor of the Geology of Central and Eastern Europe

Summary

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the Polish geoscientist, philosopher, and statesman Stanisław Staszic (1755–1826) conducted an extensive geological survey of Poland and adjacent areas. In 1815, he completed a book (in Polish), On the geology of the Carpathians and other mountains and lowlands of Poland, complemented by a well-made geological map of Central and Eastern Europe. Early in the nineteenth century, Staszic refined the idea of ‘geological mapping’, though initially he was interested in the exploration of mineral deposits, rock salt, copper and iron ores, and coal. Unlike his predecessors, his book adopted a temporal subdivision of rocks, using a somewhat modified version of Abraham Gottlob Werner's system. He delineated the surface distribution of five rock units and coloured them onto his map. His work gave expression to his view of geological history, and brought the ‘Enlightenment Period’ of geology in Central and Eastern Europe to a close.

Acknowledgements

The authors are indebted to Stanisław Czarniecki (Cracow) and David Oldroyd (Sydney) for comments on aspects of this paper. Critical reviewer remarks but positive opinion encouraged authors to extend the final version of paper. The Central Library of Vilnius University and the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences are thanked for kindly making available Staszic's original publications and old manuscript maps.

Notes

¹Tadeusz Wiśniowski, ‘W setną rocznicę pierwszej geologii polskiej. O Staszicu jako geologu’ (‘A cause de centième anniversaire de la première géologie polonaise. Staszic comme géologue’), Kosmos (Lwów, 1915a), 45.

²Walery Goetel, ‘Znaczenie ‘Ziemiorodztwa Karpatów’ Stanisława Staszica w historii geologii polskiej’, [in:] Stanisław Staszic, O ziemorodztwie Karpatów i innych gór i równin Polski (Warszawa, 1955), 5–107. [The significance of ‘The Geology of the Carpathians’ by Stanisław Staszic in the history of Polish geology.]

³Zbigniew Wójcik, Stanisław Staszic, Organizator nauki i gospodarki (Kraków, 1999), 220. [Stanisław Staszic, organiser of science and economy.]

⁴Stanisław Staszic, O ziemiorodztwie Karpatów i innych gór i równin Polski (Warszawa, 1815), 390 + map Carta geologica totius Poloniae, Moldaviae, Transilvaniae, et partis Hungariae, et Valachiae. Inventa per Staszic anno 1806. Hoffmann delin: ^t Frey Sculpt: ^t Cited after the complete edition published in Dzieła Stanisława Staszica. Tom trzeci [Warszawa], [1816], 390 pp., I–X, ill., coloured maps. (There is a copy of this edition in the Central Library of Vilnius University; three uncoloured copies of the maps may be found in The Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.)

⁷Referred from: Z. Wójcik, Stanisław Staszic … ’ (Kraków, 1999), (105) (‘Ziemia, czas i praca, są żródłem wszystkich bogactw kraju; więc poznać swoją ziemi jest w towarzystwach pierwszą, najistotniejszą potrzebą. Geologia jest główną cześcią filozofii natury; jest dopełnieniem fizyki ziemskiej. Kraj mający dokładną geognozję ziemiorodztwa swej ziemi, może tylko mieć uzupiełnioną statystykę swojego kraju’).

⁵Algimantas Grigelis, Zbigniew Wójcik, Wojciech Narębski, Leonora Živilė Gelumbauskaitė, Jan Kozák, Stanisław Czarniecki, ‘The First Large Geological Map of Central and Eastern Europe (1815)’, Geologija, 62 (Vilnius, 2008), 125–134.

⁶Zbigniew Wójcik, Stanisław Staszic (Radom, 2008), 476.

⁸Stanisław Staszic, O ziemiorodztwie Karpatów i innych gór i równin Polski, [in:] Dziela, T. III (Warszawa, 1816), (6).

⁹Władysław Zawadski, Stanisław Staszic. Szkic biograficzny (Lwów, 1860), 112. [Stanisław Staszic. Biography sketch.] Tadeusz Wiśniowski, W setną rocznicę pierwszej mapy geologicznej Polski Stanisława Staszica (Lwów, 1915b), 30. [Centenary of the first geological map of Poland by Stanisław Staszic.] Czesław Leśniewski, Dziennik podróży Stanisława Staszica. 1789–1805 (Kraków, 1931), 515. [Diary of Stanisław Staszic's travels.] Walery Goetel, ‘Znaczenie “Ziemiorodztwa Karpatów”…’ (Warszawa, 1955), 5–107. Zbigniew Wójcik, Stanisław Staszic (Radom, 2008), 476. Zbigniew Wójcik, Stanisław Staszic … (Kraków, 1999), 220.

¹⁰Tadeusz Wiśniowski, W setną rocznicę … (Lwów, 1915a), (36).

¹¹See Kenneth L. Taylor, ‘Early Geological Mapping, 1700–1830’, Proceedings of the Geoscience Information Society, 15 (Oklahoma, 1985), 15–49.

¹²Nicolaas A. Rupke, ‘The End of History in the Early Picturing of Geological Time’, History of Science, 36 (1998), 61–90.

¹³Martin J.S. Rudwick, Bursting the Limit of Time (University of Chicago Press, 2005), 708.

¹⁴That time a little township Schneidemühl, West Preussen.

¹⁵Louis-Jean-Marie Daubenton (1716–1800), French naturalist, graduated in medicine from Reims in 1741; Buffon's co-worker from 1742.

¹⁶G.L.L. Buffon, Les époques de la nature (Paris, l778). Buffon, Epoki natury, tłum[aczyl] S. Staszic (Warszawa, Kraków, Warszawa, 1786; 2nd edition 1803, 3rd edition 1816). See also Marian Skrzypek, ‘Stanislaw Staszic traducteur et continuater de l’œuvre de Buffon en Pologne’, [in:] Buffon (1707–1788) et la Pologne (Varsovie–Paris, 2007), 113–28.

¹⁷Andrzej Hieronim Franciszek Zamoyski (1716–1792), a Polish noble (szlachcic), the 10^th Ordynat of Zamość, reformer and humanist, Grand Crown Chancellor (1764–1767), the Tribunal Marshal of the Crown (1761), Inowrocław Voivode (1757–1764). (‘Ordynat’ was the title of the principal heir of ‘ordynacja’ estates in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth).

¹⁸Bieżuń, a small township in Żuromin County, Masovian Voivodeship; town rights 1409–1869, 1994.

¹⁹Zamość, Lublin Voivodeship, founded in 1580 by Jan Zamoyski, on the trade route linking western and northern Europe with the Black Sea; nowadays a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

²⁰In 1787, he produced Uwagi nad życiem Jana Zamoyskiego (Jottings on Jan Zamoyski's life); Przestrogi dla Polski (Warnings for Poland, 1790) and O statystyce Polski (On Poland's statistics, 1807) appeared subsequently. He collaborated in the compilation of Zamoyski's Judiciary Law Code (Kodeks Zamoyskiego; 1776–1778) but this was rejected by Parliament (Sejm) in 1780. In 1783, Staszic received a doctorate in civil and canon law from the Zamość Academy.

²¹Konstancja née Czartoryska Zamoyska (1742–1797).

²²Alexander Sapieha (1773–1812), a Polish aristocrat, natural philosopher, and supporter of galvanic experiments.

²³Jan Chrzciciel Albertrandy (1731–1808), Jesuit, publicist, historian, numismatist, librarian (1790) and archivist (1794) of King Stanisław August Poniatowsky; first President of the Society of Science Friends in Warsaw (1800–1808).

²⁴(Albert) Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), Danish/Icelandic sculptor, an outstanding representative of the Neoclassical period in sculpture; Thorvaldsen produced two statues of historic figures in Warsaw: the equestrian statue of Prince Józef Poniatowski that now stands before the Presidential Palace, and the statue of Nicolaus Copernicus, in front of the Polish Academy of Sciences (Staszic Palace), both located on Warsaw's Krakowskie Przedmieście.

²⁵Stanisław Staszic, O ziemiorodztwie gór dawniej Sarmacji, a później Polski (Warszawa, 1806), 136. [On the geology of the mountains of ancient Sarmatia, and later Poland.]

²⁶Zbigniew Wojcik, Stanisław Staszic—geolog. Materiały do bibliografii (Warszawa, 2005), 5–28 (11). [Stanisław Staszic—geologist. Materials for bibliography.]

²⁷ On the geology of the Carpathians and other mountains and lowlands of Poland.

²⁸Stanisław Staszic, O ziemiorodztwie … (Warszawa, 1815).

²⁹ The Human Race.

³⁰Works, Vols. I–IX.

³¹ 1951). [Stanisław Staszic, Selected works. Translated from Polish by J. Usewicz.]

³²According to Czesław Leśniewski (1931), the northeastern margins of points described by Staszic during his travels were limited by Drohiczyn, Siemiatycze, Lublin, Lubartow (15 July–12 August 1799), and later Wisnice-Radzyn-Łuków (28 November 1803–?); he was familiar with Polesie as well as the vicinities of Mława (Zamoyski's estate Bieżuń) in Masovia.

³³Stanisław Czarniecki, Algimantas Grigelis, Jan Kozák, Wojciech Narębski, Zbigniew Wójcik, ‘Carta Geologica totius Poloniae, Moldaviae, Transilvaniae et partis Hungariae et Valachiae by S. Staszic and its importance for European geology and geological cartography’, Zeszyty Staszicowskie, No. 6 (Piła, 2008), 81–101.

³⁴The ‘Meridian Island’, the furthest south and west of the Canary Islands. The island was taken as the prime meridian after Ptolemy, who defined the zero meridian based on the furthest west land in the known world. In 1634, France decided that Ferro's meridian should be used as the reference on maps, since this island is the most western position of the Old World and also thought to be exactly 20° west of the Paris meridian.

³⁵Tadeusz Wiśniowski, W setną rocznicę … (Lwów, 1915a), (11).

³⁶Zbigniew Wójcik, ‘O roku i miejscu wydania“Carta geologica totius Poloniae” Stanisława Staszica’, Z dziejów kartografii’, t. 1 (Wrocław, 1979), 55–87. [On the year and place of publication of “Carta geologica totius Poloniae’ by Stanisław Staszic.]

³⁷The sheets are not marked with separate colophons so strictly the entire map should not be called an atlas.

³⁸Algimantas Grigelis et al., ‘The first large geological map …’ (Vilnius, 2008), 125–34.

³⁹Czesław Leśniewski, Dziennik podróży … ‘ (1931), 515.

⁴⁰Stanisław Czarniecki et al., Carta geologica … ‘ (Piła, 2008), 81–101.

⁴¹Neither Staszic nor other authors of geological maps in the Wernerian period had access to a fossil-based way of correlating rock units, even though William Smith published his law of superposition in 1799. Thus, Staszic on his map delineated the boundaries of rock units based on their origin and rock contents, but Smith was first to trace stratigraphic divisions by their fossils: William Smith, A delineation of the strata of England and Wales with part of Scotland (1815); see also Simon Winchester, The Map which Changed the World, Penguin Books (London, 2002), 338.

⁴²Abraham Gottlob Werner, Kurze Klassifikation und Beschreibung der verschiedenen Gebirgsarte. In der Waltherischen Hofbuchverhandlung (Dresden, 1787), 28. [Digital version: http://www.tu-freiberg.de/~ub/grafik/werner/werbuch.html] Werner, Short classification and description of the various kinds of rocks, translated with an Introduction and Notes by Alexander M. Ospovat (New York, 1971); see also: O. Wagenbreth, ‘Abraham Gottlob Werners System der Geologie, Petrographie und Lagerstättenlehre’, Freiberger Forschungshefte C223 (Leipzig, 1967), 83–148. Ospovat noted that Werner's ‘explanation of the history of the earth's crust was as reasonable, if not more reasonable, that the explanations brought forth by those of his contemporaries who opposed his views’: ‘The importance of regional geology in the geological theories of Abraham Gottlob Werner: a contrary opinion’, Annals of Science, 37 (1980), (433).

⁴³Stanisław Staszic, O ziemiorodztwie Karpatów … (1816), vii–viii.

⁴⁴A. G. Werner, Kurze Klassifikation … (Dresden, 1787), 28.

⁴⁵Józef Osiński, Opisanie polskich zelaza fabryk (Warszawa, 1782). [Description of Polish iron factories.] Krzystof Kluk, O rzeczach kopalnych (Warszawa, 1781). [On mineral raw materials.]

⁴⁶Zbigniew Wójcik, ‘O roku i miejscu wydania …’ (1979), 68.

⁴⁷According to Z. Wójcik (1999), one German geographic mile was equivalent to 7420 m.

⁴⁸Antoni Andrzejowski (1785–1868), botanist and geologist, graduated from Vilna Principal School, assistant of botany professor W. Besser in the Volhynia Liceum in Krzemieniec; member of Eduard Eichwald's natural history expedition (1829). Andrzejowski, Rys botaniczny krain zwiedzanych w podróżach pomiędzy Bohem i Dniestrem od Zbruczy aż do Morza Czarniego odbytych w latach 1814, 1816, 1818 i 1822 (Wilno, 1823). [Botanical description of land seen in travels between Bugem and Dniestrem from Zbrucz to the Black Sea.]

⁴⁹Giovanni Anthony Rizzi-Zanoni (1736–1814)—Italian cartographer—was appointed by Joseph Alexandre Jabłonowski, Palatyn of Nowogrod, to compile a geographical map of Rzeczypospolita (Poland and Lithuania).The Rizzi-Zannoni atlas, containing 24 sheets, is stored in the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.

⁵⁰Karol Buczek, The history of Polish cartography from the 15 ^th to the 18 ^th century, translated by A. Potocki (Wroclaw-Warszawa-Krakow, 1966), 134.

⁵¹ Lithuania on the Maps, (Vilnius, 1999), 152. [The Catalogue of Exhibition.]

⁵²Antoni Andrzejowski, Rys botaniczny … (1823), 4, 109–12.

⁵³Zbigniew Wójcik, O roku i miejscu wydania … (1979), 75.

⁵⁴Tadeusz Wiśniowski, W setną rocznicę … (1915a), 11.

⁵⁵Nicolaas A. Rupke, ‘The end of history in the early picturing of geological time’, History of Science, xxxvi (1998), 61–90.

⁵⁶Kenneth L. Taylor, ‘Early geological mapping, 1700–1830’, Proceedings of the Geoscience Information Society, 15 (Oklahoma, 1985), 15–49.

⁵⁷Gian Battista Vai, William Cavazza (editors), Four Centuries of the Word Geology: Ulisse Androvandi 1603 in Bologna (Bologna, 2003), 328.

⁵⁸Jean-Étienne Guettard (1715–1786), a French naturalist and mineralogist. In 1760–1762 he was very active in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was a physician to Marc-René d'Argenson, French ambassadeur to Poland. In 1764, he communicated a memoir on the distribution of minerals and rocks of Poland, accompanied by a map recording his observations, but he had no clear ideas about the sequence of strata. Guettard gave the first professional description of the Wieliczka salt deposit near Krakow, Poland. He compiled a few mineralogical ‘distributional’ (K.L. Taylor's term) maps of France and other regions, using a geographical basis prepared by his colleague, royal cartographer Philippe Buache (1700–1773).

⁵⁹J.-É. Guettard, ‘Mémoire sur la nature du terrain de la Pologne et des minéraux qu'il renferme’ [Carte minéralogique de la Pologne], Mémoires de 1'Académie Royale des Sciences (Paris, 1764, Année 1762), 234–57, 293–336.

⁶⁰Piotr Daszkiewicz, Radosław Tarkowski, Pobyt i badania przyrodnicze Jeanna-Etienne'a Guettarda w Rzeczypospolitej (1760–1762), Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Pedagogicznego (Krakow, 2009), 192. [Jean-Etienne Guettard's natural history research and stay in the Republic of Poland (1760–1762), together with translation of a text entitled Mémoire sur la nature du terrain de la Pologne et des minéraux qu'il renferme.]

⁶¹Johann Philipp Carosi, von, Reisen durch verschiedene polnische Provinzen (Leipzig, 1781–1784), Erster Theil 264 pp., Zweyter Theil 298 pp. Johann Phillip von Carosi (1744–1801), Polish geologist, supervisor and director of mines in Warsaw, who also described his travels through the Polish territories. Carosi provides valuable information on the copper, iron, and black lead deposits that he had visited, and also gives some information on mines of the adjacent regions of Kielce and Chęciny.

⁶²Balthasar Hacquet, Neueste physikalisch–politische Reisen in den Jahren 1788 bis 1795 durch die Dacischen und Sarmatischen oder nördlichen Karpathen (Nürnburg, 1790–1796). Balthasar Hacquet (1739 or 1740–1815), ethnologist, physician, natural scientist and an early mountaineer. He lived mostly in Idria (Slovenia) and held professorships in Lwow, Lubljana and Cracow. In 1782 he conquered the highest peak of Slovenia: Triglav.

⁶³Stanisław Staszic, O ziemiorodztwie Karpatów … [1816], vii–viii.

⁶⁴G. L. L. Buffon, Les époques de la nature (Paris, l778).

⁶⁵Buffon, Epoki natury, tłum[aczyl] S. Staszic (Warszawa, Kraków, Warszawa, 1786, 1803, 1816).

⁶⁶A. G. Werner, Kurze Klassifikation … (Dresden, 1787), 28.

⁶⁷Stanisław Czarniecki et al., Carta geologica. . . (Piła, 2008), 81–101.

⁶⁸Johan Ehrenreich von Fichtel, Mineralogische Bemerkungen von dem Karpathen (Wien, 1791–1794), Erster Theil 1-412 pp., Zweyter Theil 413–730 pp. He was a Hungarian mineralogist, held advisory positions in the Austrian government and wrote extensively on the geology and mineralogy of Austria and Hungary.

⁶⁹Zbigniew Wójcik, Stanisław Staszic … (Kraków, 1999).

⁷⁰Jan Kozák and Alena Čejchanová, ‘Proto-geological map dated 1806 by Stanislaw Staszic and its role in the early 19^th century process of modern geological map development’, [in:] The Historical Relationship of Geology and Religion, Abstracts & Field Guides, INHIGEO Meeting in Eichstätt, Germany, July–August (Eichstätt, 2007), 27.

⁷¹Zbigniew Wójcik, ‘Ewolucja myśli geologicznej Stanisława Staszica’, ‘Zeszyty Staszicowskie’, No. 5 (Piła, 2006), 13–45.

⁷²Stanisław Czarniecki et al., Carta geologica … (Piła, 2008).

⁷³See for example Frederik Dubois de Montpereaux, ‘Geognostische bemerkungen über Lithauen’, Archiv für Mineralogie, Geognosie, Bergbau und Hüttenkunde, Bd. II (Berlin, 1830), 135–156. Eduard Eichwald, Naturhistorische Skizze von Lithauen, Volhynien und Podolien in geognostisch–mineralogischer, botanischer und zoologischer Hinsicht (Wilna, 1830). Georg Gottlieb Pusch, Geologischer Atlas von Polen (Stuttgart, 1836).

⁷⁴Stanisław Czarniecki et al., Carta geologica … (Piła, 2008).

⁷⁵ See Bert Hansen, ‘Georg Christian Füchsel’, Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by C.C. Gillispie (New York, 1970), vol. 5, 205–206.

⁷⁶Karl Alfred von Zittel (1839–1904), eminent Austrian palaeontologist, geologist, historian of geosciences. Author of the well-known manual ‘Grundzüge der Palaeontologie’ (1895), translated into English as History of Geology and Palaeontology (1901); an American reprint of this book appeared in 1962. The following quotations are from the latter edition, pp. 47, 57, and 59.

⁷⁷M.J.S. Rudwick, Bursting the limits of time, 2005, 84.

⁷⁸Karol Jurkiewicz, Geologija, [in:] S. Olgebrand, Encyklopedia powszechna, t. 9 (Warszawa 1862), 882. [Universal Encyclopaedia.]

⁷⁹Gian Battista Vai and William Cavazza (editors), Four Centuries … (Bologna, 2003), 328.

⁸⁰Benjamin Martin, Philosophical Grammar (1735), p. 11.

⁸¹The early members of the Geological Society of London were, however, chiefly mineralogists and did not immediately deploy William Smith's well-known biostratigraphic principles or interest themselves in questions of the Earth's history. In fact, Martin Rudwick's Bursting the Limits of Time (2005) represents Smith's work as ‘enhanced geognosy’ (rather than historical geology) on the grounds that Smith was primarily interested in economic matters and the structure of strata. His use of fossils was directed not towards unraveling the Earth's history but its structure—which in Rudwick's view was the preoccupation of the German geognostic tradition. In Scotland, Robert Jameson was a strong Wernerian and used the term ‘geognosy’. We are grateful to D. Oldroyd for this nuanced interpretation.

⁸²Georg Gottlieb Pusch, Geologischer Atlas von Polen (Stuttgart, 1836). G. Pusch (1790–1846) was Werner's pupil, professor of the Academic Mining School in Kielce.

⁸³Ludwig Zejszner, Carte géologique de la chaine du Tatra et les soulèments parallèles (1844). L. Zejszner (1805–1871) was educated in Warsaw, Berlin, Göttingen and Heidelberg universities.

⁸⁴Gian Battista Vai, ‘A History of Chronostratigraphy’, Stratigraphy, 4, 2/3 (2007), 1–15.

⁸⁵Stanisław Staszic, O ziemiorodztwie … (1815), 390.

⁸⁶Philippe Taquet (editor), Alcide d'Orbigny. Du noveau monde … au passé du monde (Paris, 2002), 128.