Alexander Gerard (discoverer)
Alexander Gerard (born February 19, 1792 in Old Machar, Old Aberdeen , Aberdeen , Scotland , † December 15, 1839 in Aberdeen) was a Scottish geographer and explorer who explored the border areas to Tibet as a British army officer in India in the Himalayas .
Life
He was the son of the theological author Gilbert Gerard (1760-1815) and grandson of the philosopher and theologian Alexander Gerard (1728-1795). His mother Helen, nee Duncan, was the daughter of John Duncan, Provost of Aberdeen. His brothers were James Gilbert Gerard (1793-1835) and Patrick Gerard (1794-1848).
After earning his MA in 1808 at King's College in Aberdeen , he became a cadet in the forces of the East India Company . On their behalf he took on the routes from Delhi to Lahore and from Ludhiana to Bareilly in 1812 . In 1814 he became a lieutenant and was commissioned to conduct explorations in the Saharanpur district in the Doab of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers . During the Gurkha War he was called to his regiment, but returned to Saharanpur in December 1815, where he completed his investigations in February 1819. In 1819 he joined the Sirmoor Battalion stationed in Dehra Dun , later the 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles .
In 1817 he went on an expedition from Sabathu together with George Govan (1787–1865) to the Satluj valley in the Himalayas , an area still little known to Europeans at the time. His report on the expedition, Journal of a survey from Soobathoo to Rarung, 1817 , appeared in 1841 together with the 1831 Account of Koonawur, in the Himalaya .
In 1818 he and his brother James von Sabathu started another expedition to Satluj and from there through the valley of the Spiti to the pass of the Shipkila on the Tibetan border. Under difficult conditions, especially since they had to take their measurements in the freezing cold of dawn in order to avoid a sensation, he and his brother were able to carry out their survey of these Indian-Tibetan border regions. The reports about the journey appeared in 1824 ( Journal of a journey from Shipké to the frontier of Chinese Thibet ), 1841 ( Narrative of the journey in 1818 ) and 1842 ( Journey from Subathoo to Shipké in Chinese Tartary ).
In June 1821, initially accompanied by his brother James, he set out on the longest of his Himalayan expeditions, with the aim of crossing the Tibetan border and exploring the sources of Satluj in the Manasarovar Lake area . However, this project failed because they were repeatedly turned away by Tibetan border guards ("Chinese Tatars"). His attempt to penetrate into Ladakh also failed. Although he was disappointed that he had missed his original goals, he had nevertheless carried out extensive data collections and measurements on this trip. On this basis, maps and an expedition report were created, which was published in 1840 as Captain Alexander Gerard's account of an attempt to penetrate by Bekhur to Garoo and the Lake Manasarowara . His travel diary served as the basis for the work On the valley of the Setlej river, in the Himalayan mountains published by Henry Colebrooke in 1827 .
In November 1822 he returned to lower areas to carry out surveys in Malwa and Rajputana , but soon fell ill and had to break off the operation. In 1824 he became the British representative in Bangur and then in Nasirabad near Ajmer . Not until September 1826 did he feel that he was again in a condition that allowed expeditions, but had to give up the project the following August because of severe rheumatism and fever. His health never returned. In 1836 he took his leave and returned to Scotland, where he died in Aberdeen in 1839.
The lunar crater Gerard was named after him in 1935.
Fonts
- Account of Koonawur, in the Himalaya. 1841.
- Captain Alexander Gerard's account of an attempt to penetrate by Bekhur to Garoo and the Lake Manasarowara. In: William Lloyd: Narrative of a Journey from Caunpoor to the Boorendo Pass in the Himalaya Mountains. 1840.
literature
- Katherine Prior: Gerard, Alexander (1792-1839) . In: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, doi: 10.1093 / ref: odnb / 10549
Individual evidence
- ↑ Edinburgh Journal of Science 1 (1824), pp. 41-52, 215-25
- ↑ In: George Lloyd: Account of Koonawur. 1841
- ^ In: Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 11 (1842), pp. 363-391
- ^ Henry Colebrooke: On the valley of the Setlej river, in the Himalayan mountains. In: Transactions of the Royal Asian Society of London 1 (1827), pp. 343-380
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gerard, Alexander |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish geographer and explorer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 19, 1792 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Old Machar, Old Aberdeen, Aberdeen |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 15, 1839 |
| Place of death | Aberdeen |