Loess Letter LL67 April 2012 Loess Letter LL is a newsletter for the INQUA Loess Focus Group (President:

Slobodan.Markovic@dgt.uns.ac.rs ), for the INQUA Loess & Dust Community, for anyone interested in loess. LL is published by the Geography Department, Leicester University (editor: Ian Smalley- in the Geography Department ijs4@le.ac.uk and in the LL office at the Tin Drum Community ijsmalley@gmail.com ). LL67 is another targeted issue; this time the topic is history. The Focus Group project 1824 looks at the beginning of loess; the moment when Karl Caesar von Leonhard defined loess in section 89 of Charakteristik der Felsarten. KCvL did not invent the term loess; he chose the term loess from a set of competing words, and it quickly gained universal acceptance. J.J.Steininger had been calling it Britz and the wonderful term Schneckenhausel Boden had been used (and is used as a sub-title for LL67). We reproduce the two critical pages from Charakteristic der Felsarten- this is the beginning of our world. Leonard Horner, writing about the geology around Bonn in 1833 acknowledged Von Leonhard as the pioneer but suggested that the best account of loess was found in an 1830 book by H.G.Bronn about the geology around Heidelberg. We reproduce key pages from Gaea Heidelbergensis. The first mention of loess in English was probably by Sam.Hibbert in his book(1832) on the volcanoes of the Rhine region. We reproduce more critical pages; and we acknowledge Google.books for making these loessic classics readily available. We also acknowledge the not-welldefined publishing companies which have been making hard copies available.