After his journey to the leading German observatories in the 1830's he started a long series of geomagnetical measurements suggested to him by Gauss.

Member of the Swedish parliament for almost 40 years. He was one of the leading forces who managed to stop the plans, strongly demanded by the liberal newspapers in Stockholm, to move the entire Uppsala university to the capital in the middle of the century.

His autobiography "Account for a long life", published by N.V.E. Nordenmark in 1949 in more than 700 pages, gives valuable insight in most aspects of science and culture in Sweden during the 19th century.