Heilprin, Angelo

Heilprin, Angelo (1853–1907) geologist, paleontologist, traveler; born in Satoralja-Ujhely, Hungary (son of Michael Heilprin). He was brought to the U.S.A. in 1856 but returned to Europe for his college and university education. From 1880–1900 he held a series of professorships, curatorships, and club presidencies in Philadelphia scientific institutions. From 1903–07 he was a professor of geography at Yale. Best known as a traveler and explorer, he went with Robert Peary on his Arctic expedition in 1891. His most spectacular moments came when he photographed the Mont Pelée volcano at close range while it was erupting in 1902. He wrote numerous books, including Principles of Geology (1890), The Earth and Its Story (1896), and Mont Pelée and the Tragedy of Martinique (1903); a talented painter, he illustrated some of his own works. On a 1906 expedition up the Orinoco River in British Guiana, he contracted some tropical disease; but he died of a heart problem the next year.