Lukaszewicz, Jósef

Lukaszewicz, Jósef 

(losif Dement’evich Łukaszewicz), Born Dec. 1 (13), 1863, at the Bykowka estate near Vilnius; died Oct. 19, 1928, in Vilnius. Member of the Russian revolutionary movement. Polish geologist.

The son of a nobleman, Łukaszewicz entered the University of St. Petersburg in 1883. He was one of the organizers of the terrorist faction within the People’s Will. In the trial of the participants in the case of Mar. 1, 1887, he was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life. Confined in the Shlissel’burg Fortress, he was freed in 1905 and subsequently renounced political activity. His Recollections of the Case of March 1 1887 was published in 1917.

Between 1911 and 1919, Łukaszewicz worked for the Geological Committee. In 1915 he advanced the hypothesis of a connection between periods of glaciation and mountain-building processes. In 1920 he was appointed a professor at the University of Vilnius. In his book The Nonorganic Life of Earth (parts 1-3, 1908-11), he introduced the idea of the zonal metamorphism of rocks. He also worked on the problem of the cycle of matter in the earth’s crust.