Ignacy Domeyko or Domejko, pseudonym: Zegota was a Polish geologist, mineralogist, educator, and founder of the University of Santiago, in Chile.
10 Facts About Ignacy Domeyko
2.
Ignacy Domeyko lived some 50 years in Chile and made major contributions to the study of that country's geography, geology and mineralogy.
3.
Ignacy Domeyko is seen as having had close ties to several countries and thus in 2002, when UNESCO organized a series of commemorations of the 200th anniversary of his birth, he was referred to as "a citizen of the world".
4.
The Ignacy Domeyko family held the Polish Dangiel coat of arms.
5.
Ignacy's father, Hipolit Domeyko, who was president of the local land court, died when Ignacy was seven years old; the boy's uncles then served as his guardians.
6.
Ignacy Domeyko enrolled at Vilnius University, then known as the Imperial University of Vilna, in 1816 as a student of mathematics and physics.
7.
Ignacy Domeyko studied at the Sorbonne and maintained his political engagements with Belarusians, Poles, and Lithuanians.
8.
Ignacy Domeyko is credited with introducing the metric system to Latin America.
9.
Ignacy Domeyko served as a professor at a mining college in Coquimbo and after 1847 at the University of Chile, of which he was rector for 16 years.
10.
In 1884 Ignacy Domeyko returned for an extended visit to Europe and remained there until 1889, visiting his birthplace and other places in the former Commonwealth, as well as Paris and Jerusalem.