Note: The following Obituary Notice appeared in the "Athenaeum" 20th August 1864 and was reprinted in the "Brighton Herald" Saturday 27th August 1864. F.R.B.
At his residence in York Road Brighton on the 27th of July died a man who has left his mark on the history of geological speculation. Augustus De (sic) Bergh was born at Hamburgh (sic) and reached the age of 86 adding another to the many previous proofs of the beneficial influence of intellectual pursuits in prolonging life. He was the son of an author by profession. When he was but 6 or 7 years old his father falling ill from overwork precariously paid young De Bergh was sent to sea a friendly skipper offering to take him a trial voyage and if he was made of the right stuff bind him as an apprentice without a premium. 80 years ago the ordeal of a sailor boy on his first voyage was a very severe one but De Bergh stood it so well as to win the friendship of his rough but kind Captain.
Carefully taught Astronomy and Navigation by his father and the art of handling a ship by his master the boy soon became a superior seaman. He obtained the command of a ship when but a lad and prudently saving his earnings he had a ship of his own while still a young man. He worked hard, saved hard and studied hard.
In the house of a wealthy merchant at Christiania Norway he formed a friendship with a man who enriched a mind already ennobled by astronomy with the problems of geology. This man was von Buch. Leopold von Buch and Augustus De Bergh met in 1806 and in the following year Von Buch established and published the startling observation "that the whole country from Frederickstall in Norway and perhaps as far as St. Petersburg was slowly and insensibly rising".
The friends repeatedly voyaged and travelled together discussing on decks and coasts of astronomical and geological questions. Out of these colloquies grew in the mind of De Bergh a theory of the connexion between the Science of stars and strata entitled "A theory or considerations in the motions of the major Axis or Revolution and Change of the line of Apsides of the Earth's Orbit: its Causes and the effects produced in its Orbital Revolutions through the Ecliptic from one Hemisphere to the other involving a certain number of years".
All the calculations in support of this theory were made relative to the year 1830. A geological friend of the Author published an account of his theory a few years later.
Living a very quiet and retired life latterly at Brighton collecting and arranging a valuable private museum, Capt De Bergh contented himself with explaining his views and lending his M.S.S. to his friends. ^ or 7 years since Mr De Bergh himself published his "Essay on the Causes of Pediodic Inundations". Soon after or almost simultaneously the theory taught for so many years previously by Mr De Bergh was published under a French Firm in M. Alphonse Joseph Adhemar's "Revolution de la Mer" a form in which the theory obtained considerable notice. When apprised of this circumstance the sailor Smiled and said "All my friends know that I have talked to them of my theory and shown them all my calculation many times during the last 30 or 40 years".
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