Arnost Vysoky (1823 - 1872)

My great great grandfather Arnost Vysoky was born in south Bohemian town Varvazov. He studied at grammar school in Pisek and later on in Prague. During his holidays he would collect Czech folk songs and poems and some of them were included in a book by famous Czech writer Karel Jaromir Erben, which was published in 1862. He studied history at first but later he followed the advice of his friend and went to Banska Stiavnica, Slovakia, to study mining. He finished his studies in Loeben, Austria and Pribram, Czech Republic in 1850.

In 1851 he went to work in Jachymov (St. Joachimstahl), Czech Republic where he together with chemical and mining engineer Adolf Patera introduced the industrial manufacturing of light uranium yellow. He worked also in Austria near Idria where he established a plant for extraction of copper but went back to Jachymov.

Since 1856 he was the head of the Jachymov uranium plant. At the beginning of 1858 he introduced a new sort of sodium diuranate denoted as uranium orange, which was prepared by precipitation from hot uranyl carbonate complex solutions by sodium hydroxide. The light yellow ammonium diuranate also facilitate preparation of other uranium compounds, e. g. oxides, uranyl nitrate, uranyl acetate etc. The standard composition (stoichiometric composition) and chemical purity of the pigments produced there were suitable for application in glass work and ceramics manufacturing. Uranium yellow from the Jachymov factory was markedly cheaper than pigments manufactured according to the previous methods. The quality of uranium yellow from the Jachymov factory was promptly awarded with a medal at industrial exhibition in Munich in 1854, then in Paris in 1855 and the uranium orange in London in 1862.

In 1861 my great grandfather formulated a theory that the flourescence of glass coloured with uranium yellow is caused by rays sent from the uranium. 30 years later this theory was confirmed by experiments of Marie and Peter Curie.

He left Jachymov in 1869 to work in Pribram mine where he died on 23 March 1872 - only 49 years old.