Enoch Hjalmar Furuhjelm
Enoch Hjalmar Furuhjelm
1888 Obituary [1]
ENOCH HJALMAR FURUHJELM was born in Helsingfors, Finland, October 3, 1823, and became in 1844 a student at the Academy of Helsingfors, where he studied chemistry, mineralogy, &c., until 1847. In that year he went to the Bergacademie in Freiberg (Saxony), and graduated there in 1850.
After being employed as mining engineer in Finland, he was in 1851 engaged at the works of Count Stroganoff in Ural, where he remained till 1853. In that year he was employed by a Russian-American company as manager of some coal mines on the isle of Sitka, in the south of Alaska. In 1856 he was, by the same company, elected chief of a new colony for the development of another coalfield at Cook's Inlet, also in Alaska.
In 1862 he left Alaska and returned—through Mexico, the United States, England, and Belgium—to Finland, where he was appointed by the Government as a mining engineer, and during the years 1865 to 1867, as State geologist, he made a geological survey of the southern part of Finland.
In 1868 he was sent to Belgium by the Government as rail-inspector, and during that and the following six years he acted in that capacity at different works in Belgium, France, and England for the Finnish and Russian Governments.
In 1871 he was appointed by the Government as "Ofvermasmastare," or State-inspector of blast furnaces, and in that capacity lie visited, during 1873 and 1875, all the mining works in Finland, of which he wrote descriptions in his reports to the Government. In 1884 he was advanced to the position of superintendent of the mining department. During these years he constructed several furnaces and other plant, and did a great deal for the development of the mineral industries of his country. He also published annual reports on the mineral statistics of Finland, of which abstracts have been made in this Journal from time to time.
Mr. Furuhjelm was a knight of the Russian orders of Vladimir, St. Anne, and Stanislas. He was elected a member of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1875. He never took a direct part in the meetings of the Institute, but his name is frequently mentioned in the Journal in connection with his metallurgical memoirs on such subjects as the Lake ores of Finland, and the Stuckoven process as applied in that country. He died in the latter part of 1887 at his residence in Helsingfors, and with his death has passed away the most prominent figure connected with the interesting iron industry of his native country.