Alexander Brongniart

Alexandre Brongniart was a French chemist, mineralogist, and zoologist, who collaborated with Georges Cuvier on a study of the geology of the region around Paris. 

Born: February 5, 1770, Paris, France

Died: October 7, 1847

Parents: Alexandre-Théodore Brongniart

Children: Adolphe-Théodore Brongniart

Alexandre Brongniart, French mineralogist, geologist, and naturalist, who first arranged the geologic formations of the Tertiary Period (66.4 to 1.6 million years ago) in chronological order and described them. (The Tertiary Period was later replaced with the Paleogene and Neogene periods; together they span the interval between 65.5 and 2.6 million years ago.)

Brongniart was appointed professor of natural history at the École Centrale des Quatre-Nations, Paris, in 1797, and in 1800 he was made director of the Sèvres Porcelain Factory, a post he retained until his death. He worked to improve the art of enameling in France and made Sèvres the leading such factory in Europe.

Among Brongniart’s early papers is the “Essai d’une classification naturelle des reptiles” (1800; “Essay on the Natural Classification of Reptiles”), in which he divided the class Reptilia into four orders: Batrachia