science · 10 August 1709 · 315 years ago
birth
Born 10 Aug 1709; died 20 May 1755 at age 45.
German explorer, natural scientist and botanist who acted as a natural historian on the imperial scientific expedition led by Friedrich Müller in eastern Siberia (1733-43). From barometric pressure readings, he was first to determine that the shores of the Caspian lay below sea level. In 1735, at the town of Yeniseysk, he recorded a record low temperature. He also detected the permafrost in eastern Siberia, which, a little way below the surface of the ground remained frozen year round. Gmelin spent the period 1747-69 preparing a book recording his finds there. In Flora sibirica sive historia plantorum Sibiriae, he detailed 1,178 species and provided 294 illustrations. His original degree was in medicine (1727), but his fields of study included chemistry, natural resources, geology, zoology, ethnography and geography. He was Leopold Gmelin's great uncle.
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