Strike,” a large composition which attracted attention on the walls of the National academy in 1886.
KOEHLER, Sylvester Rosa, author, b. in
Leipsic, Germany, 11 Feb., 1837. His grandfather
was a musician and composer of note, and his
father an artist. Mr. Koehler came to this country
in 1849, after he had received the rudiments of a
classical education. His present home is in
Roxbury, Mass. He edited the “American Art
Review” while it existed, and has contributed largely
on art to periodicals in this country and Europe.
He has published translations of Von Betzold's
“Theory of Color,” edited by Prof. Edward C.
Pickering (Boston, 1876), and Lalanne's “Treatise
on Etching,” with notes (1880), and is the author
of “Art Education and Art Patronage in the
United States” (1882), and “Etching, an Outline
of its Technical Processes and its History, with
Some Remarks on Collections and Collecting”
(New York, 1885). Mr. Koehler wrote the text for
“Original Etchings by American Artists” (1883)
for “Twenty Original American Etchings” (1884)
and for “American Art” (in press, 1887). He also
edited the “United States Art Directory and
Year Book” for 1882 and 1884, and is now (1887)
engaged on a history of color-painting.
KOENIG, George Augustus, chemist, b. in
Willstedt, Baden, Germany, about 1845. He was
graduated at the Carlsruhe polytechnic school in
1863 as a mechanical engineer, and then studied
the natural sciences, especially geology and
mineralogy, at the universities of Heidelberg and
Berlin, receiving the degree of Ph. D. from the
former in 1867. Subsequently he spent a year
at Freiberg, Saxony, where he devoted his attention
to the practice of mining and metallurgy, and
in October, 1868, he came to the United States.
At first he was engaged in industrial chemistry,
manufacturing sodium stannate from scrap tin,
but in 1869 he became chemist to the Tacony
chemical works in Philadelphia, for which corporation
he examined mining property in Mexico, notably
in the Botapelas district of Chihuahua. In
1874 he was appointed assistant professor of chemistry
and mineralogy in the University of
Pennsylvania, becoming acting professor of geology and
mining in 1879, and professor of mineralogy and
metallurgy in 1886. His scientific work includes
the invention of chromometry or the application
of complementary colors to the quantitative
estimation of metals that are dissolved in known
quantities of glass fluxes, the description of four
new species of minerals, and the re-examination
and more perfect determination of numerous other
species, and the development of a method for freeing
the silver from low-grade ores by the combined
action of chlorine, a concentrated solution of salt,
and steam pressure, for which a patent was issued
in 1880, but which failed of commercial success.
He is a member of scientific societies, and was one
of the Seybert commission appointed by the
University of Pennsylvania to investigate spiritualism.
Dr. Koenig's investigations have been published in
the “Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society,” in the “Journal” of the Philadelphia
academy of natural sciences, of which societies he
is a member, and in other chemical journals at
home and abroad.
KOENIG, Juan Ramon (kuh'-nig), South
American scientist, b. in Malines, Flanders, in
1623; d. in Lima, Peru, 19 July, 1709. He was a
priest, and came to Peru in 1655, in the suite of
the viceroy, the Count of Alba de Aliste, who
appointed him chaplain of the hospital of Espiritu
Santo. Koenig taught various branches at the
college of San Marcos, especially cosmography. By
royal order he visited in 1672 the principal place's
of Peru to take observations of their latitude and
longitude, for which purpose he had to construct
for himself several mathematical instruments that
were not to be obtained in Peru. In 1677 he was
appointed successor of Francisco Lozano in the
chair of mathematics, and was also appointed royal
cosmographer. In 1781 he engraved with his own
hands a map of Peru on a silver plate, which was
highly praised by the French geographer, Louis
Feuillet. When the viceroy, the Duke of La
Palata, resolved in 1682 to fortify the city of Lima,
Koenig, together with Gen. Venegas Osorio,
formed the plan for the fortifications, and directed
their execution. Koenig wrote “Problema de la
duplicación del Cubo” (Madrid, 1678), and from
1680 till 1708 published in Lima daily weather
observations under the title of “Conocimiento de los
tiempos.” During his last years he had accumulated
much material for a geography of Peru, but,
unfortunately, after his death a friend burned
nearly all his papers, to avoid making public his
private matters, and thus the manuscript was lost.
KOEPPEN, Adolphus Louis, educator, b. in
Copenhagen, Denmark, 14 Feb., 1804; d. in Athens,
Greece, 14 April, 1873. He was destined for
the army, but studied law, and in 1825 entered
the royal board of commerce. In 1834, during a
visit to Greece, he was invited by King Otho to
fill the professorship of history, archaeology, and
modern languages at the royal military college of
the Euelpides, which was then situated in the
island of Ægina. He was obliged to retire in
1843, in consequence of a popular demonstration
against the German system of government, and
returned to Denmark, but in 1846 came to the United
States at the invitation of the Historical society of
Philadelphia, before which he delivered a course
of lectures on “Ancient and Modern Athens and
Attica.” These were repeated within the next few
years in an enlarged form before the Lowell institute
in Boston, the Smithsonian institution in
Washington, the University of Virginia, Brown
university, and other similar bodies. In 1850-'1
he gave lectures on the political, social, and literary
history of the middle ages. About the same
time he accepted the professorship of history,
esthetics, and modern languages in Franklin and
Marshall college, Lancaster, Pa. He published
“The World in the Middle Ages,” accompanied by
an “Historico-Geographical Atlas of the Middle
Ages” (2 vols., New York, 1854).
KOERNER, Gustav, jurist, b. in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Germany, 20 Nov., 1809. He was graduated in law at Heidelberg in 1832, came to the United States in 1833, and studied American jurisprudence at Transylvania university in 1834-'5, after which he practised his profession in Belleville, Ill., where he now (1887) resides. He was a member of the legislature in 1842-'3, and judge of the supreme court of Illinois from 1845 till 1851. From 1853 till 1857 he served as lieutenant-governor of the state. He was instrumental in raising the 43d Illinois regiment in 1861, but, before its organization was completed, he was appointed colonel of volunteers in August, 1868, and assigned as aide to Gen. Frémont, upon whose removal he was assigned to Gen. Henry W. Halleck's staff, but resigned in April, 1862, owing to impaired health. In July, 1862, he was appointed U. S. minister to Spain, which post he resigned in January, 1865. He was a member for the state at large of the Chicago conventions that nominated Lincoln in 1860 and Horace Greeley in 1872. In 1867 he was appointed
