Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/575

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WERGELAND American journalist, grandson of John Went- worth, jr., born in Sandwich, N. H., March 5, 1815. He graduated at Dartmouth college in 1836, and was editor of the Chicago "Demo- crat" from 1836 to 1861. He was elected to congress from Chicago in 1843, and was re- elected five times, acting at first with the demo- cratic and afterward with the republican party. He was elected mayor of Chicago in 1857, and again in 1860, and was a member of the con- vention of 1861 to revise the constitution of Illinois. He is the author of " Wentworth Genealogy " (2 vols. 8vo, 1870). WERGELAND, Henrik Arnold, a Norwegian poet, born in Christiansand, June 17, 1808, died in Christiania, Aug. 12, 1845. He became direc- tor of the university library in Christiania, and in 1840 of the national archives. He was for a long time the most popular dramatic and especially lyric poet of Norway, but had many controversies with Welhaven and other oppo- nents of his provincialism. He zealously ad- vocated the rights of the Jews. His collect- ed works are in 9 vols. (Christiania, 1852-'7). Select editions appeared in 1846 and 1859, and his biography by Lassen in 1867. WERBILAND, a S. W. Ian of Sweden, in Svea- land, bordering on Norway, and including Lake Wener in the south ; area, 6,520 sq. m. ; pop. in 1874, 265,027. Its capital, Carlstad, is situ- ated on an island near the N. E. shore of Lake Wener. The lake has an area of about 2,000 sq. m., and, excepting Ladoga and Onega in Russia, is the largest lake in Europe. Its main affluent is the Klar, and among the finest mountains on its shores is the Kinnekulle, about 1,000 ft. high. Wermland is generally mountainous, and is richer in iron mines than any other part of Sweden, the principal being at Presberg. The drainage of the mining regions runs into Lake Wener. WERNER, Abraham Gottlob, a German min- eralogist, born at Wehrau, Upper Lusatia, Sept. 25, 1750, died in Dresden, June 30, 1817. He completed his studies at Freiberg and Leipsic, and from 1775 till his death was professor of mineralogy and geology at the Freiberg mining academy. He was early regarded as the first mineralogist of his time, and his lectures were attended by great numbers of students from all parts of Europe. He opened separate courses for various branches of study, and in 1785 one relating to geology, which he was the first to raise to the importance of a science by point- ing out its application to the practical purposes of mining. As early as 1774 he had published Von den dusserlichen Kennzeichen der Fossilien (translated into French by Mme. Guyton de Morveau, Paris, 1790 ; into English by Weaver with notes, Wernerian society, Edinburgh, 1849-'50), which, though only a brief essay, was said by Cuvier to have revolutionized miner- alogy by giving precision to the terminology and classification of that science. (See MINER- ALOGY, vol. xi., p. 589.) His principles were widely disseminated by his pupils, among whom WERNER 555 were Karsten and Robert Jameson, the latter of whom about 1845 established at Edinburgh the Wernerian society. Antagonistic views on certain points were advocated by his contem- porary Dr. Button of Edinburgh, and geolo- gists were long divided into the Wernerian and Huttonian parties. (See GEOLOGY, vol. vii., pp. 688, 689.) He was never married. His few works include Kurze Classification und BescJireibung der Gebirgsarten (Dresden, 1787), and his celebrated Neue Theorie uber Entste- hung der Gauge (Freiberg, 1791 ; translated into French by Daubuisson, Paris, 1803; into English by' Charles Anderson, " New Theory of the Formation of Veins, with its Applica- tion to the Art of Working Mines," Edinburgh, 1809). His collection and manuscripts came into the possession of the Freiberg academy. Cuvier's eulogy of him is included in his iZloges historiques, edited by Flourens (Paris, 1860). Sketches of his life have been written in Ger- man by Frisch (Leipsic, 1825), in Italian by Configliachi (Padua, 1827), and in English by Sir William Jardine for the " Naturalist's Li- brary" (Edinburgh, 1837). WERNER, Anton von, a German painter, born in Frankfort-on-the-Oder, May 9, 1843. He studied at the Berlin academy and under Adolph Schroder in Carlsruhe, whose daughter he mar- ried. His " Luther before Cajetan " (1865) and " Conradin of Hohenstaufen and Frederick of Baden hearing the Sentence of Death" (1866) won a prize and gave him the means of study- ing abroad. In 1870 he completed for the Kiel gymnasium " Luther before the Diet of Worms " and " The National Uprising of 1 813." At the recommendation of the grand duke of Baden he was invited to the German head- quarters in France. In 1873 he was commis- sioned by the emperor to execute the largo fresco for the triumphal column in the Konigs- platz, Berlin, which commemorates victories in the Schleswig-Holstein, Austrian, and Franco- German wars. WERNER, Friedrich Lndwlg Zacharias, a Ger- man dramatist, born in Konigsberg, Nov. 18, 1768, died in Vienna, Jan. 18, 1823. He stud- ied under Kant, held a civil office in Warsaw, and relinquished one in Berlin in order to travel. He met Goethe at Weimar and Mme. de Stae'l at Coppet, joined the Catholic church at Rome in 1811, and became a priest in Vien- na. His Der merundzwanzigste Februar (trans- lated into French by Jules Lacroix, Paris, 1849), thus entitled because his mother and an intimate friend died on that day, introduced the era of the so-called tragedies of fate. Sev- eral of his dramatic poems were designed to evangelize freemasonry; most of them have been collected in 6 vols. (Vienna, 1817-'18), and his complete works, including sacred po- ems and sermons, in 14 vols., with his biography by Schutz (Grimma, 1839-'41). WERNER, Karl, a German painter, born in Weimar, Oct. 4, 1808. He studied in Leipsic and Munich, resided chiefly in Rome from 1888