Angelo Heilprin was born at
Sátoraljaújhely, in the
Zemplén County of the
Kingdom of Hungary. His family was
Jewish. He arrived in the United States from the
Austrian Empire with his father
Michael and his brother
Louis in 1856. He went back to Europe in
1876 for two years to complete his education. He studied at the
Royal School of Mines, London, at the Imperial Geological Institution of Vienna, and at
Florence (where he had his only formal training in painting) and
Geneva; he also went to Hungary, where he mountaineered in the
Carpathians, and to Poland where he visited family for six months. He then became professor of
invertebrate paleontology and of
geology at the
Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia (1880–1900),
curator of the museum of that institution (1883–1892), professor of geology at the
Wagner Free Institute of Science in
Philadelphia (1885–1890); and he was the first president of the
Geographical Society of Philadelphia, serving for seven years. In 1883, he was elected as a member to the
American Philosophical Society. Also a painter, Heilprin exhibited ''Autumn's First Whisper
at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1880, and Forest Exiles'' at the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 1883. In 1902 he founded the
American Alpine Club. In 1904, he was appointed as a lecturer at
Yale.
Research , with the Montagne Pelée volcano lost in cloud in the background In Heilprin's life research travels alternate with periods of teaching and writing. He visited Florida, the Bermudas, Mexico, Greenland and Martinique while also devoting work to his more immediate surroundings. His mountaineering skills were put to use many times in his scientific work. In
1886, Heilprin undertook an expedition to the then little-known west coast of
Florida. In
1887 he went to the
Bermudas with members of his classes to study
coral reefs, confirming
Charles Darwin's
1842 views expressed in
The structure and distribution of coral reefs. In
1888, Heilprin was in
Mexico, where he ascended volcanos:
Ixtaccihuatl,
Nevado de Toluca,
Pico de Orizaba and
Popocatepetl, establishing their altitudes with
barometric measures. He also shed light on questions about the geology of the
Yucatan and the coral reefs of the western
Gulf of Mexico. En
1891 Heilprin embarked with
Robert Peary on an
expedition to Greenland organized by the
Academy of Natural Sciences. Peary was the leader of the north-bound expedition, which was to prove that Greenland is an island. Heilprin headed the "Western Expedition" comprising half a dozen scientists. The scientists collected data then returned to the U.S., while Peary remained in Greenland. But the next year Heilprin was back to Greenland, leading the "Peary relief expedition". In
1902, when
Montagne Pelée in
Martinique erupted, reducing the city of
Saint-Pierre to ashes, Heilprin was one of the first scientists to arrive to the site. His works, photographs and eyewitness account of the phenomena and their consequences are unique. He was the first geologist to ascend a side of the crater. He revisited it in 1903 and in February 1906 descended into the crater itself.
Remembrance • In 1976 the
American Alpine Club established a yearly "Angelo Heilprin Citation". == Selected works and documents ==