Albrecht Roscher

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Albrecht Roscher (born August 27, 1836 in Ottensen , † March 19, 1860 in Hisonguny on Lake Malawi ) was a German geographer and Africa explorer .

Life

Albrecht Roscher showed a strong scientific and geographical interest at the Johanneum School of Scholars in Hamburg . From 1856 to 1858 he studied natural sciences, oriental languages , geography and medicine at the University of Leipzig . One of his teachers was the theologian Gustav Moritz Redslob (1804–1882). In 1857 he received his doctorate in philosophy in Leipzig . In his dissertation , he reconstructed the geography of Inner Africa on the basis of Ptolemy's map of the world . His aim was to localize the sources of the Nile .

In 1858 he embarked on a scientific trip to Africa lasting several years, financially supported by Hamburg merchants and bankers, the Hamburg Senate and King Maximilian II of Bavaria . From Hamburg he reached the island of Zanzibar on September 13, 1858 . During his two-month stay in Zanzibar he learned the Bantu language Swahili , collected botanical knowledge and described the eponymous vanilla -Art Vanilla roscheri .

In February and March 1859 he toured the coast of what is now Tanzania . He explored Dar es Salaam Bay and the Rufiji River Delta . In addition to astronomical localizations, he examined the amount of water carried by the river and made inquiries about trade routes and the hinterland. In Kunduchi he met the British African explorers Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke , whose expedition to Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria influenced Albrecht Roscher's further research.

In April 1859 he had to interrupt his trip in Kilwa for several months because of severe attacks of fever . Because his means of travel were in danger of being exhausted, he set out on an expedition to Lake Malawi at the end of August 1859, still in poor health . He joined an Arab slave caravan for this purpose. Only two months after the British African explorer David Livingstone , weakened by renewed attacks of fever and predatory threats, he reached the village of Nussewa on October 20, 1859 on the east bank of Lake Nyassa, now Lake Malawi. In the following months he explored the area around the lake and prepared an expedition to the Malimba area in Cameroon . On March 17, 1860, he left Nussewa to fetch supplies that had been left behind on the route. On March 19 or 20, he and his companions were murdered in the hamlet of Ksunguni on three day trips from Lake Malawi. His scientific records and diaries from this expedition were lost.

Despite his brief research career, his work received great recognition. His contemporaries saw in him the "ideal type of scientist and fighter of slavery who sacrificed himself for the exploration of the earth". In 1867 he was appointed a foreign member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences .

Albrecht Roscher was the older brother of the Hamburg businessman and senator Eduard Heinrich Roscher and a cousin of the economist Wilhelm Roscher .

Works

  • Albrecht Roscher: Ptolemaeus and the trade routes in Central Africa. A contribution to the explanation of the oldest surviving world map . Perthes, Gotha 1857
Detail from the two tables that are enclosed with the dissertation. A contribution to the explanation of the oldest surviving world map.

literature

  • Friedrich Embacher: Lexicon of journeys and discoveries, Section 1 (The explorers of all times and countries) . Bibliographical Institute, Leipzig 1882
  • BW Feddersen and AJ von Oettingen (eds.): JC Poggendorff's biographical-literary concise dictionary for the history of the exact sciences. Contains evidence of living conditions and achievements of mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, chemists, mineralogists, geologists, geographers etc. of all peoples and times , Vol. 3, part. 2. Barth, Leipzig 1898, p. 549
  • Friedrich Ratzel:  Roscher, Albrecht . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 29, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, pp. 164-166.
  • Ludwig Gerhardt:  Roscher, Albrecht. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 41 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • JW Heldring: The Killing of Dr. Albrecht Roscher. The Story of a Young German Explorer in East Africa 1858-1860 . Upfront, Peterborough 2003, ISBN 1-84426-163-8
  • NN: Personnel Notes - Dr. Albrecht Roscher . In: Plant Systematics and Evolution 10, H. 5, 1860, pp. 164-165
  • Friedrich Ratzel: Roscher, Albrecht. In: Historical Commission at the Royal Academy of Sciences (ed.): Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 29. Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1889, pp. 164–166
  • Karl wall: Albrecht Roscher. An expedition to death in Africa . Germans among other peoples, Vol. 12. Roether, Darmstadt 1986, ISBN 3-7929-0151-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Roscher 1857
  2. ↑ Neue Deutsche Biographie, Vol. 22, p. 42
personal data
SURNAME Roscher, Albrecht
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German Africa explorer
DATE OF BIRTH August 27, 1836
PLACE OF BIRTH Ottensen
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1860
Place of death at Hisonguny