Koninck, Laurent Guillaume De
KONINCK, LAURENT GUILLAUME DE (1800-1887), Belgian palaeontologist and chemist, was born at Louvain on the 3rd of May 1809. He studied medicine in the university of his native town, and in 1831 he became assistant in the chemical schools. He pursued the study of chemistry in Paris, Berlin and Giessen, and was subsequently engaged in teaching the science at Ghent and Liege. In 1856 he was appointed professor of chemistry in the Li6ge University, and he retained this post, until the close of his life. About the year 1835 he began to devote his leisure to the investigation of the Carboniferous fossils around Liege, and ultimately he became distinguished for his researches on the palaeontology of the Palaeozoic rocks, and especially for his descriptions of the mollusca, brachiopods, Crustacea and crinoids of the Carboniferous limestone of Belgium. In recognition of this work the Wollaston medal was awarded to him in 1875 by the Geological Society of London, and in 1876 he was appointed professor of palaeontology at Liege. He died at Liege on the 16th of July 1887.
PUBLICATIONS. Elements de chimie inorganique (1839); Description des animaux fossiles qui se trouvent dans le terrain Carbonifere de Belgique (1842-1844, supp. 1851); Recherches sur les animaux fossiles (1847, 1873). See Notice sur L. G. de Koninck, by E. Dupont ; Annuaire de I'Acad. roy. de Belgique (1891), with portrait and bibliography.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
