George Buchholtz Jr.

Késmárk, November 3, 1688 – † Késmárk, August 3, 1737 / naturalist, writer, poet, theologian ; ; His father, György Buchholtz, elder, was a schoolmaster and Lutheran pastor (in Kisszeben) in various towns in the highlands. His son began his secondary education in Késmárk, then completed his secondary education under the guidance of Mihály Missovitz in Rozsnyón between 1704 and 1708. He set off on his peregrination in 1708, first in Gdańsk and then in Greifswald at the university, where he studied humanities, theology and natural sciences. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on an astronomical topic (De conjunctionibus planetarum in genere et in specie de conjunctione Mercurii cum Sole, 1710). He returned home for two years and took up a job as a tutor, but in 1713 he travelled to Germany again: he increased his knowledge in Dresden, Leipzig, Halle, Jena and Wittenberg. In 1714 he taught in Nagypalugya, and from 1723 until his death in Késmárk at the Evangelical Lyceum, where he also held the position of rector. As a poet, he wrote in four languages (German, Latin, Hungarian, Czech). For younger students, he mostly wrote in Hungarian, for older students in German. In addition to his teaching work, he was involved in natural sciences and the study of the Tatras. ; He was very versatile, as he was equally at home in geology, botany, astronomy, chemistry, physics, mathematics and archaeology. He organised study trips to the Tatras with his students (later others followed his example). He himself visited, examined and described many stalactite caves. He made a general drawing of the passages of the Demänfalvi Cave, but in 1719 he also visited the Szilice Ice Cave (Hideglyuk). In 1719 he found “dragon skeletons” in one of the caves, and even sent one piece to the Elector of Saxony, who exhibited it in his treasury and sent the scientist a gold medal. The dragon bones were actually the remains of the cave bear. Although he did not have a medical qualification, he was considered an effective healer in his environment. He successfully improved the pine balm of his wife’s grandfather, Augustini Keresztély, ab Hortis (Kakaslomnic). In 1724 he also toured the Tatra Mountains with a German traveler of Hungarian origin. (Dr. E. F. Bruckmann reported on this in a German newspaper in 1740.) He was not only a man of theoretical sciences, but also showed himself to be skilled in practical matters. He himself built and assembled the sets for school plays, but he also constructed sundials and repaired tower clocks, painted, composed music and drew maps. ; He regularly reported on the scientific and other newspapers in Germany, reporting on lunar eclipses, meteors, comets, summer snowfall, floods and other unusual or interesting natural phenomena. He was a colleague of Mátyás Bél, for whom he wrote several studies in his Prodromus and Notitia, and his drawing of the Deménfalvi Cave was included in the former work in the form of an etching.