Arnold Henry Guyot

Alex Rover | August 13, 2022

Summary

Arnold Henri Guyot († February 8, 1884 in Princeton, USA) was a Swiss-US naturalist and geographer.

Already in his youth he collected plants and insects. He studied theology at the University of Neuchâtel and natural history on the side. In 1825 he continued his studies in Karlsruhe. Here he lived with a Braun family, where he met Louis Agassiz (1807-1873).

Guyot moved to Berlin to prepare for a clerical post. Here, however, he decided to abandon theology in favor of the natural sciences. He listened to lectures by Alexander von Humboldt and Carl Ritter. In 1835 he finished his studies with a dissertation on the natural classification of lakes. Guyot went to Paris and became a tutor to the sons of the Comte de Pourtalès, from a noble family connected to Neuchâtel. This position gave him the opportunity to travel extensively throughout Europe.

In 1838, he met Agassiz again in Paris and their acquaintance became a lifelong friendship. On the advice of his mentor, Guyot explored alpine glaciers the next summer, making important discoveries that, thanks to Agassiz, he was able to present to the Geological Society of France in 1838. In 1839 he returned to Switzerland and was appointed professor of history and physical geography in Neuchâtel. From 1840 to 1847 he studied erratic blocks in Switzerland. The revolution of 1848 hindered work at the academy, so he went to America with Agassiz. In Boston he lectured on comparative physical geography. In 1849 he published his lecture “Earth and Man.” In 1854 he was appointed professor of physical geography and geology at Princeton.

In 1856, he built a museum from his collections, which became the present Princeton Museum of Natural History. For the Smithsonian Institution, he built meteorological stations and laid down precise instructions for them. They formed the nucleus of today”s United States Weather Bureau. By 1881, he had completed a topographic survey of the Appalachian Mountains from Vermont to the Catskills.

Several mountains (Mount Guyot – in the North Carolina-Tennessee Line in the Great Smoky Mountains, in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, in the Colorado Rockies), a glacier in Alaska (Guyot Glacier), a lunar crater (Guyot Crater), and the undersea knolls of

Sources

1. Arnold Henri Guyot
2. Arnold Henry Guyot
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10. Orthographié Arnold Henry Guyot aux États-Unis
11. L”Académie de Neuchâtel sera fermée par le Grand Conseil neuchâtelois en 1848, et renaîtra sous la forme d”université de Neuchâtel.
12. Geosciences
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