August Emanuel von Reuss was a spa doctor in Bílina and made his name in world geology as the founder of micropalaeontology, the study of microscopic fossils that help determine the age of geological strata. He is one of three prominent scientists who helped to make geology a fully-fledged science in the 19th century and whose life and research are linked with North Bohemia: J. E. Hibsch, C. G. Laube and A. E. Reuss.

As the oldest of the three, Reuss was originally, like his father Franz Ambrosius Reuss, a spa doctor in Bílina. (F. A. Reuss was also a world-renowned figure – he consolidated geological research on the properties of mineral waters and its effects, thus founding the entire field of balneology.) August Emanuel is considered the founder of micropalaeontology – i.e. the study of the fossils of microscopic organisms. They proved to be of great importance in the relative determination of the age of geological strata. He focused mainly on foraminifera, the shells of which can be described and distinguished relatively accurately, so that they were quite easy to study even with the microscopes available at the time. Reuss notices that the individual rock layers were typical for certain types of forams, enabling a certain period of geological history to be identified fairly precisely, even in small sections.

A. E. Reuss specialised primarily in what are known as Cretaceous formations, i.e. the remnants of the last sea during the Cretaceous Period, comprising the well-known marlstones and sandstones. However, he also studied other geological phenomena in the Central Europe region. He published his findings in German and his work had an impact on many later fields of geology that were just being established as sciences. He worked in Prague and later in Vienna. He was appointed Rector of Charles University in 1859.

What is interesting is that he was awarded numerous honours and titles in acknowledgement of his scientific work, including an aristocratic title. Franz Joseph I added 3 geological symbols to Reuss’s coat of arms: Bořeň hill (the dominant landmark of the region, towering jaggedly over his birthplace of Bílina, a place that still fascinates not only geologists), the fossil of a Cretaceous ammonite shell (although a foram shell would be more appropriate in Reuss’s case, that apparently did not appear suitable to the imperial heraldrist) and a branch of fossilised coral. Reuss’s coat of arms thus beautifully combines the romantic spirit of the 19th century: the ideal of knowledge and the knightly spirit, but also the poeticism that came to be lost from science in the 20th century.

Reuss’s extensive collection of fossils contained specimens from areas that later often disappeared as a result of coal mining. His collections filled roughly ten rail wagons, in which they were transported to Budapest in 1873 after Reuss’s death, where, however, many of the collections were destroyed during the Hungarian uprising in 1956.

Connected places: Bořeň
Reuss Memorial at Bílina spa
Franz Ambrosius Reuss
Bílinská kyselka MuseumPamátník Reussů v lázních Bílina; Franz Ambros Reuss; Muzeum Bílinská kyselka

August Emanuel Reuss