Kreil, Karl, Austrian meteorologist and astronomer, b. at Ried, Upper Austria, 4 Nov., 1798; d. at Vienna, 21 Dec., 1862. He received his early education at the Benedictine Abbey of Kremsmünster, under the noted astronomer P. Boniface Schwarzenbrunner. There he joined in the work at the observatory. He studied law for financial reasons, but, in 1823, decided to give it up and to devote himself exclusively to the mathematical and physical sciences, In 1827 he became assistant at the observatory of the Vienna University, then, 1831, adjunct at the observatory de La Brera of Milan. In 1838 he was transferred to the Prague Observatory, of which he became director in 1845. He found this observatory in -— poor condition and was therefore obliged to co his work more and more to terrestrial observations. He introduced into Austria the study of a new science, that of terrestrial physics. The necessary instruments he obtained by personal privations and persistent ef forts. He organized a rational system of magnetic and meteorological observations, which soon placed Prague in the same class with such observatories as that of Göttingen, which was richly endowed and which was directed by the great Gauss. ‘ The emperor conferred upon him the cross of Knight of the Order of Francis Joseph. A member of 4 Imperial Academy of Vienna since its foundation in 1847, he submitted to it his plans for the establishment of a central station for magnetic and meteor logical observations in Austria. This was realized at Vienna in 1851. He was made the first director and at the same time became professor of physics at University of Vienna. His systematic observations, begun at Milan and Prague, soon extended first over Bohemia and later over the entire empire to the shores of the Adriatic, as well as to Turkey and the Black Sea. His religious convictions were very pronounced, and, far from clashing with his scientific occupations, they added a new force to them. He contributed a number of papers and reports to the Academy, improved magnetic apparatus, and constructed some self-registering meteorological instruments. The work at Prague was published in eleven volumes, 1839-1850 under the title of “Magnet. und Meteorolog. Beob zu Prag”. Other publications are: “Cenni storici e teoretici sulle comete” (Milan, 1832); “ Beob. fiber den grossen Kometen von 1843” (Prague, 1843); “ Natur Bewegung der Kometen” (Prague, 1843); “Magn, und geogr. Ortsbestimmungen im Oesterr. Kais thum” (5 vols., Vienna, 1846-1851); “ Anleitung magn. Beobachtungen” (2nd ed., Vienna, 1858 “Horizontale Komponente der magnetischen Ei kraft’? (Vienna, 1853). He edited “ Astronomisch-meteorologisches Jahrbuch fiir Prag” (Prague, 1842-1845) and also “Jahrbiicher der Zentral-anstalt fiir Meteorologie und Erdmagnetismus” (1849-1862).
KNELLER, Das Christentum (Freiburg, 1904), 104; GÜNTHER aRy Allgemeine Deutsche Biogr., XVII (Leipzig, 1883); M HALL, Les Mondes, I (Paris, 1863), 401; Grunert, Archiv der Math. und Phys.; Litter. Bericht, CLVII (Greifswald, 1864).
William Fox.