Materiały Karola Nereusza Bohdanowicza w zbiorach Archiwum Polskiej Akademii Nauk

Abstrakt

Karol Nereusz Bohdanowicz papers in the Archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences

Karol Nereusz Bohdanowicz 1864–1947, a geologist, geographer, mining engineer, explorer looking for natural resources and traveller, studied geology, mineralogy and mining at the Mining Institute in Petersburg. In 1902 he obtained a doctorate of technical sciences there, followed by the title of associate professor in 1903 and full professor in 1909. He also lectured there in exploration geology and compound geology. In 1885–1919 Bohdanowicz took part in a number of research expeditions. Between 1892 and 1894 he conducted research into the deposits and geological conditions in southern Siberia during the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railway between Tomsk and Irkutsk. He discovered a coalfield near Cheremkhovo, nephrite deposits in the Angara River basin as well as deposits of rock-salt and iron ore. Between 1895 and 1900 he headed an expedition to Eastern Siberia, which success­fully searched for gold deposits near the Sea of Okhotsk, the Amur River, on the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Chukchi Peninsula. In 1902–1904 and 1906–1919 he worked as a profes­sor of geology at the Mining Institute in Petersburg Petrograd. From 1914 until 1917 he served as the director of the Geological Committee in Petrograd. From 1919 he managed the Nobel Brothers company in Poland. In 1921–1935 he lectured at the Mining Academy in Kraków, where in 1935 he became an honorary professor. Between 1938 and 1947 he was the director of the State Geological Institute in Warsaw. Over the years Karol Bohdanowicz wrote more than 200 research papers, academic textbooks and other works. His legacy 0.02 running metre was donated to the Archives of the Polish Academy of Sciences by a mining specialist and professor of the Mining Academy and the Silesian University of Technology, Bolesław Krupiński, in 1954. The documents were divided into two groups. Group I contains biographical material from 1919–1947, concerning e.g. Karol Bohdanowicz’s work at the Mining Academy in Kraków and the State Geological Institute in Warsaw; the award to the scientist of the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta 1936 and the “Rebirth of Poland” Order, second class 1946; as well as congratulatory letters and wishes on his sixtieth birthday and forty years of working as a scientist 1924, and sixty years of profes­sional activity 1946. Group II contains correspondence from 1922–1946, concerning mainly issues of Karol Bohdanowicz’s membership of various Polish and foreign scientific societies and academies as well as invitations to special sessions of these organisations; the documents include correspondence in Russian with various scientific institutions in Russia