Toyokichi Harada

Japanese: 原田豊吉 - はらだ・とよきち

Year of death: December 2, 1894 (Meiji 27)
Year of birth: November 21, 1861 (January 1, 1861)
Geologist of the Meiji period. Born in Koishikawa, Edo, as the eldest son of Harada Kazumichi, a samurai of Okayama and a Western-style military scholar. In 1874, he accompanied his father to Germany, where he studied at the Mining Academy in Freiberg, the birthplace of modern geology, and then at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Munich, where he studied petrology and paleontology. After working at the Geological Survey of Vienna for a year, he returned to Japan in 1841. In 1843, when Naumann, a foreign employee who had been teaching geology in Japan for 10 years, returned to Germany, Harada became the first Japanese professor of geology at the University of Tokyo's Department of Geology. Harada was expected to have acquired the latest in geology and be able to debate on an equal footing with Naumann, but he also seemed to have been hasty in venturing out to present his own theories. In 1847, he fell ill and resigned from the university, and the following year he took a leave of absence from his concurrent position as deputy director of the Geological Survey of Japan. For this reason, his main work, Die japanischen Inseln eine topographische geologische Uebersicht (The Japanese Archipelago - A Topographical and Geological Overview) (1890), was left unfinished. The debate over the origins of the Fossa Magna was progressing, involving the great Viennese geologist Siss, and this was a good opportunity for Japanese geology to become independent, but Harada's early death and Naumann's failure to obtain a university post after returning to Japan meant that it ended halfway. The Western-style painter Naojiro was his younger brother, and Kumao, author of "Harada Diary," was his son. <References> Imai Isao, "Japanese Geology in the Early Days," Yamashita Noboru, "Harada Toyokichi's Theory of the Geological Structure of the Japanese Archipelago" (Geological Journal, Vol. 99, No. 4).

(Tsutomu Tanimoto)

Source: Asahi Japanese Historical Biography: Asahi Shimbun Publications Inc. About Asahi Japanese Historical Biography

Japanese:

没年：明治27.12.2(1894)
生年：万延1.11.21(1861.1.1)
明治時代の地質学者。岡山藩士で洋式兵学者の原田一道の長子として江戸小石川に生まれる。明治7(1874)年父に連れられてドイツに渡り,近代地質学発祥の地フライベルクの鉱山アカデミーを経て,ハイデルベルク大学とミュンヘン大学で岩石学と古生物学を学ぶ。ウィーンの地質調査所に1年間勤務したのち,16年に帰国。10年間日本の地質学を指導してきたお雇い外国人ナウマンがドイツに帰った18年に,日本人初の東大地質学科教授に就任した。最新の地質学を身につけ,ナウマンと対等に議論できる者として期待された原田は,ナウマンの業績を受け継ぎながらも,あえて自説を立てるのに急なところもあったようだ。22年病を得て大学を辞し,兼務していた地質調査所の次長も翌年休職する。このため主著《Die japanischen Inseln eine topographische geologische Uebersicht(日本群島―地形学的,地質学的概観)》(1890)も未完に終わっている。フォッサ・マグナの成因をめぐる論争は,ウィーンの大地質学者ジュースを巻き込む形で進行しており,日本地質学自立の好機だったが,原田の夭折や帰国後のナウマンの大学ポスト獲得失敗などで,中途半端に終わってしまった。洋画家直次郎は弟,『原田日記』の著者熊男は息子。<参考文献>今井功『黎明期の日本地質学』,山下昇「原田豊吉の日本群島地質構造論」(『地質学雑誌』99巻4号)

(谷本勉)

出典　朝日日本歴史人物事典：（株）朝日新聞出版朝日日本歴史人物事典について　情報

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