Prof. Filip Pota

Abstract

WITHIN the past few months death has taken heavy toll among the professors of the Charles' (Bohemian) University of Prague. On January 7 died Prof. Pocta, professor of palaeontology and geology. He was born in Prague in 1859 and studied first in our University, then in Bonn, in the Musee d'Histoire naturelle in Paris, in the Lavalle Museum in France, and from there in Stockholm with Prof. Lindstrom. His first big work was a modern investigation of the sponges from the Bohemian calcareous formation, of which he studied not only the external form but also the interior skeleton, and this study he extended to sponges from Hungary, Dresden, France, and from the collection of the Bonn University. After this he studied the rudists and worked in the Sorbonne, the Ecole de Mines in Paris, as well as in the British Museum. After the death of Prof. Novak he investigated the material which was left by Barrande, who intended to describe it in the eighth volume of his classical work, “Systeme silurien du centre de la Boheme.” For this purpose Pocta made a great collection of illustrations of corals and Ccelenterata, a collection which was, as regards execution, without a rival. He also deciphered for the first time the inner structure of the end chamber of Ortho-ceras. The first part of the eighth volume was published in 1894 and the second in 1902. Being originally a palaeontologist, he became later on a geologist. He published much in both sciences in Bohemian, German, French, and Magyar. Pocta was a member of the Royal Society of Bohemia, of the Bohemian Academy of Sciences, of the Geological Societies of Paris, Berlin, and of other learned societies.