Born 27 July 1773 and died 4 August 1844.
He was a Norwegian historian and statesman. He was born in Porsgrund, Norway and while studying divinity in Copenhagen, he became interested in the pursuit of natural science. In 1797 he set out to make the tour of the scientific schools in Germany where he became acquainted with the great geologist Abraham Gottlob Werner. In 1799, having spent the winter at the celebrated academy of mines in Freiberg, he returned to Norway and invested his patrimony in the purchase of the immense iron-works of Naes, in the Arendall ore region. In 1814 he took a prominent part in the framing of the free constitution of Norway, and for fourteen years (1816–1830) he was a leading member of the Norwegian National Assembly. In 1832–1836 he published, in three volumes, entitled Present and Past, a redaction of his own numerous magazine articles on the history of the antiquities of Norway. In 1838–1839 his standard translation of Snorre Sturelsons Heimskringla appeared. His Reminisciences (1844–1845) is a repository of data concerning the contemporaneous history of the Scandinavia peninsula. (Source: Wikipedia).
