Abstract
PROMINENT among men of science in Bohemia towards the end of last century was Karel Vrba. Born at Klatovy in west Bohemia on November 10, 1845, he studied science at Prague and graduated in 1868, first becoming assistant to the professor of mineralogy, Dr. V. von Zepharovich, and later docent in petrography. Then he was appointed professor of mineralogy at Czernowitz in Bukovina, returning to Prague in the same capacity in 1881 when the Czech University was reinstated. At this time there was a complete overhauling of the old collection of minerals, to which Vrba constantly added more to make it as complete and representative as possible. He gave the first detailed descriptions (sometimes as long monographs) of twenty-nine minerals, mostly occurring locally though a few came from abroad, including one from Bolivia. The accounts of stephanite (1895) and the beryls of Pisek (1888) are regarded as Czech classics in science.
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Karel Vrba (1845–1922). Nature 156, 598 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/156598b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/156598b0