The marriage between Mark Theodore de (or: von) Morlot (Note 4) and Constance Ingleby was blessed with the births of Karl Adolph and of his sister Margaretha Elisabeth Adolfine.
The education of Adolph von Morlot started out at a public school in Gottstatt, near Biel/Bienne, Switzerland; during 1835 and 1836 he visited the municipal "Realschule"of Bern, where he developed a definite liking for mathematics.
According to Wurzbach's "Biographisches Lexikon" [2] Adolph von Morlot immediately felt at home in his new surroundings: the open and honest discussions greatly stimulated his lively, albeit independent mind.
Meanwhile, in Graz the general assembly of the "Geognostisch-montanistischen Verein für Innerösterreich und das Land ob der Enns" had decided to appoint Adolph von Morlot as its "Vereinscommisar".
During his years in Vienna Adolph von Morlot performed a series of experiments (most probably at the request of Wilhelm Haidinger) to try and synthesize the mineral dolomite.
Furthermore, Von Morlot (1847 A) expressed his astonishment over the fact, that Arduino had ventured to postulate this far-reaching chemical process for the formation of dolomite merely on the basis of field observations only.
Citing from Haidinger's own paper (1844) [7] Von Morlot repeated the observation made by three well-known chemists of that time Friedrich Wöhler, Eilhardt Mitscherlich and Leopold Gmelin, that powdered dolomite reacts with a solution of calcium sulphate in water to give calcium carbonate powder in a solution of magnesium sulphate.
Wilhelm Haidinger had admitted to Von Morlot (Note 6), that this must be the reaction that really takes place at room temperature (of around 25 °C), but at the same time he had suggested to Von Morlot that the change from calcium carbonate into dolomite would take place in the deeper realms of the earth, that is to say at elevated temperatures and under high pressure.
The laboratory syntheses of dolomite by Von Morlot involved finely powdered, pure calcite crystals mixed with a quantity of magnesium sulphate heptahydrate.
The high pressure developing inside the glass tube was prevented from blowing it up through fitting it in a (steel) gun barrel filled up with fine sand.
After applying the rather simple method of adding dilute hydrochloric acid to distinguish between calcium carbonate and dolomite to the powder obtained in his high-temperature / high-pressure experiments, Von Morlot (1847 B)[8] noted that not all of the precipitate would dissolve.
In 1850 Von Morlot had been dismissed from his position as the secretary of the "Geognostisch-montanistischen Verein für Innerösterreich und das Land ob der Enns", and his attempts to find employment at the "Geologische Reichsanstalt" in Vienna had been thwarted.
From 1865 to 1867 Adolph von Morlot worked as the "Konservator" (custodian) of the archaeological collection of the city of Bern, now known as the Bernisches Historisches Museum.
After his prolonged journey into Sweden and Denmark, Von Morlot made two shorter visits to Northern Germany (one to Schwerin, and a second one to Hallstadt).
While writing a memoir on the archaeology of Northern Germany, Adolph von Morlot unexpectedly died on 10 February in Bern, Switzerland, only 47 years old.
The books are: "Erläuterungen zur Geologischen Uebersichtskarte der nordöstlichen Alpen" (1847, Braumüller & Seidel, Wien, 86 p.), "Leçon d'ouverture d'un cours sur la haute Antiquité, fait à l'Académie de Lausanne en Novembre et Décembre 1860" (1861, Impr.
For example: Ueber die geologischen Verhältnisse von Istrien mit Berücksichtigung Dalmatiens und der angrenzenden Gegenden Croatiens, Unterkrains und des Görzer Kreises (1848), Braumüller und Seidel, Wien, 33 p.; Allgemeine Bemerkungen über die Altertumskunde (1859), Haller, Bern, 15 p.; General views on archaeology (1861), Congressional Globe Office, Washington, 62 p.; Sur le passage de l'âge de la pierre à l'âge du bronze et sur les métaux employés dans l'âge du bronze (1866), Thiele, Copenhagen, 38 p.; l'Archéologie du Mecklenbourg comparée à celle de l'Europe Centrale.
Âge de la pierre (1868), Herzog, Zürich, 41 p.; but at closer look these are all reprints of papers that originally appeared in various science journals.
1: The present article is based mainly on the texts of the necrology by Chavannes (1867), the biography of Adolph von Morlot as printed on pp.
96–100 in C. von Wurzbach's "Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich, enthalten die Lebensskizzen der denkwürdigen Personen, welche seit 1750 in den österreichischen Kronländern geboren wurden oder darin gelebt und gewirkt haben.
2: Most publications on Karl Adolph von Morlot tend to follow Chavannes'(1867) necrology and mention 22 March 1820 as the date of his birth; perhaps more confidence should be placed in the date of 5 April 1820 given by the genealogy data base of the old families of Bern, "Berner Geschlechter" [14], the more so because the latter site gives the full names of his father, mother and sister, lacking in most other biographies.
Later the training of future employees took place in Vienna, in the newly instituted "Montanistisches Museum", where Friedrich Mohs, formerly professor at Freiberg, taught from 1826 to 1839.