Ivan German

(real name, Benedict-Franz-Johann von Herrmann). Born Mar. 3 (14), 1755, at Mariahof in Styria. Died Jan. 31 (Feb. 11), 1815, in St. Petersburg. Mining engineer, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1786).

An Austrian by origin, German migrated to Russia in 1782. In 1801 he became director of the Ekaterinburg mining directorate. German assembled a great amount of material on the technology of metallurgical production and the history of mining and also on deposits of ores and minerals. He made technological and economic descriptions of a number of factories. German demonstrated the necessity of a systematic collection of statistical information, outlined a plan for organizing statistics of the Russian population and economy, and formulated the principles of a one-day census of the population. He attempted to make a calculation of the revenue of Russia.