Ferenc Herbich

* Bratislava, January 15, 1821 – † Cluj-Napoca, January 15, 1887 / geologist, museologist ; ; His father, Ferenc Herbich, Sr., was a military doctor and amateur flora researcher. His station changed frequently, so his son completed his secondary school studies not in his hometown, but in Czernowitz in Bukovina, now part of Ukraine. In 1840–1841, at his father's request, he studied medical sciences at the Josefinum in Vienna, but his interest turned him towards mining and geology, so he graduated from the Mining and Forestry Academy in Bánya between 1841–1844. He served as a mining officer in Bukovina between 1845–1854. In his free time, he studied the minerals of Bukovina. He worked in Transylvania from 1854, and in 1869 he became assistant curator of the Transylvanian Museum in Cluj-Napoca. At the end of the 1850s he made a long study trip to Germany and Belgium, from where he returned home with a wealth of petrological material. He expanded and organized the geological and paleontological material of the museum. In 1873, he won great acclaim at the Vienna World Exhibition with his collection of 1,500 pieces of Transylvanian eruptive rocks. He methodically examined the geological conditions of Transylvania and also played an important role in its geological mapping. It was his merit that one of the largest bodies that fell during the Móc meteorite fall on February 3, 1883, weighing about 70 kg, came into the museum's possession. From 1875 he was a private tutor at the University of Cluj-Napoca. ; ; His main works: ; Description of the hitherto known mineral species of Bukovina, 1859, ; Geological conditions of Northeastern Transylvania (also in German), 1871, ; Geological and paleontological description of the Székely Land (also in German), 1878, ; Paleontological studies on the limestone cliffs of the Transylvanian Ore Mountains (also in German), 1887.