Ignacy Domeyko

Ignacy Domeyko (1802 to 1889) was a Polish geologist, mineralogist and educator who founded the University of Santiago in Chile. Born near Nieswiez in the Russian partition of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, he studied mathematics and physics at Vilnius, belonged to the Philomaths with Adam Mickiewicz, and fought in the 1830 uprising before exile. He earned an engineering degree at the Paris school of mines, and in 1838 went to Chile, where he lived about fifty years and became a citizen in 1849. He made major contributions to the study of Chile's geography, geology and mineralogy, described previously unknown minerals, introduced the metric system to Latin America, and was rector of the University of Chile for sixteen years from 1867. The mineral domeykite is named after him.