Lang, Karl Nikolaus

(b. Lucerne, Switzerland, 18 February 1670; d. Lucerne, 2 May 1741)

Paleontology

Lang was a collector of fossils who gave original descriptions of many of the fossils of Switzerland. He was categorically opposed to the idea of their organic origin and particularly argued against the conception of the diluvialists that fossils were animals destroyed in the Flood.

His principal concern was with marine fossils. Confronted with difficulties stemming both from the similarity of these fossils to living animal and their presence on land, especially in the mountains of Switzerland, Lang adopted a view similar to that of Lhwyd. according to Lang the fossils originated from tiny, seminal seeds of living marine animals that were scattered around he earth by the air. Once distributed in this manner the seeds were carried into and through the earth by water. the heat of the earth activated a plastic force inherent in each seed, and the aura seminalis, or seminal breeze, gave the seed shape. Because this force was particularly strong in the icy waters and snow of the mountain tops, the fossils were more common in these areas.

Lang’s fossil descriptions were used and his theories discussed by Beringer, and Lang is said to have been a colleague of Scheuchzer. Yet the colseness of his relationship with Scheuchzer is open to question since the latter was a diluvialist. Lan’s works were well known both in Great Britain and on the Continent but were often severely criticized by diluvialists, one of whom, john Woodward, successfully opposed Lang’s membership in the Royal Society of London.

Lang, who studied medicine in Bologna and Rome, held many official medical positions in the forest cantons of Switzerland. He was married to Maria Anna Meyer of Altishofen on 5 November 1708. Lang suffered a stroke in 1733 from which he never fully recovered although he continued to work on his fossil collections with the aid of his son.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. For a complete list of Lang’s works, see Bachmann (below). His main writings are Historia lapidum figuratorum helvetiae, ejusque viciniae, in qua non solum enarrantur omnia eorum genera, species et vires aeneisque tabulis repraesentantur, sed insuper adducuntur eorum loca nativa, in quibus reperiri solent, ut cuilibet facile sit eos colligere modo adducata loca adire libeat (Venice, 1708); and Tractatus de origine lapidum figuratorum in quodiffuse disseritur, utrum nimirum sunt corpora marina a diluvio ad montes translata, et tractu temporis petrificata vel ana seminio quodam e materia lapidescente intra terra generantur, quibus accedit accurata diluvii, ejusque in terra effectuum descriptio cum dissertatione viventium, testaceorum praecipue, plurimorumque corporum, a vitium, testaceorum praecipue, plurimorumque corporum, a viplastica aurae seminalis hinc inde delatae extra consuetum matricem productorum (Lucerne, 1709).

II. Secondary Literature. A biography with a descriptive list of woks is Hans Bachmann, “Karl Nikolaus lang Dr. Phil. et Med. 1670-1741,” in Geschichtsfreund,51 (1896), 167-280. Helpful references to Lang’s works are in The Lying Stones of Dr.Beringer, Being His Lithographiae Wirceburgensis, translated and annoated by Melvin E. Jahn and Daniel j. Woolf (BerkeleydasLos Angeles, 1963). A letter from Woodward to Scheichzer is in Melvin E.Jahn, “Some Notes on Dr. Scheuchzer and on Homo diluvii testis,”s in Cecil J.Schneer, ed., Toward a History of Geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), pp. 193-194.

Patsy A. Gerstner