August Sunday

August Sonntag (born August 22, 1832 in Altona , † December 1860 in Sarfalik , Greenland ) was a German-American astronomer and polar explorer .

August Sunday

Life

Sunday was the son of a master tailor in Altona. His talent in the field of mathematics was shown early on. At the age of 16 he was Heinrich Christian Schumacher's assistant at the Altona observatory. Even after Schumacher's death in 1850, Sonntag remained active at the observatory under his successor Adolph Cornelius Petersen .

In the winter of 1852/53 August Sonntag went to New York surprisingly . He joined the 2nd Grinnell Expedition, led by Elisha Kent Kane , who went in search of the missing Franklin Expedition . The main task on Sundays was to take meteorological and geomagnetic measurements and thus tie in with the work of Carl Ludwig Giesecke . On May 30, 1853, the expedition left New York on board the Advance . The journey led through Baffin Bay and Smithsund into the as yet unknown Kane Basin , where the ship froze in the ice. From here the men went on long dog sled rides and explored the parts of Greenland and Ellesmere Island that could be reached . After the second wintering, the ship had to be abandoned in 1855. Together with the rest of the team, Sunday reached Upernavik, 1000 km away, after a strenuous return journey in August .

Sunday in the observatory of the 2nd Grinnell expedition

Through Kane's mediation, Sonntag became the private secretary of the explorer Johann Wilhelm von Müller in 1856 and accompanied him to Mexico to take geomagnetic measurements. He also climbed the 5,462 m high Popocatépetl volcano . During Sunday's absence, the book Professor Sonntag's Thrilling Narrative of Grinnell Exploring Expedition in the Years 1853, 1854, and 1855, in Search of Sir John Franklin, under the Command of Dr. EK Kane, USN , which provoked protests from the other expedition members. Sonntag distanced himself from the work. All he had sent to the publisher Charles C. Rhodes was a brief travelogue.

In 1859 Franz brought Brünnow Sunday to the Dudley Observatory in Schenectady , New York . He gave up his post as deputy director of this observatory back in 1860 to instead accompany Isaac Israel Hayes on his polar expedition. This time Sunday was deputy expedition leader. The men soon got into trouble when the ship was damaged in the journey through the ice and eventually froze at Port Foulkes in Smithsund. In addition, most of the sled dogs died of an epidemic. In December 1860, Sonntag went to the nearest Inuit settlement with Hans Hendrik , an Inuk who had already served Kane well as a local guide and interpreter, to get new dogs. On the way it broke through a thin spot in the sea ice. The following night he froze to death in the abandoned Inuit settlement of Sarfalik on Cape Alexander .

literature

Renate Hauschild-Thiessen: August Sonntag, an astronomer from Altona as a victim of the Arctic . In: Hamburgische Geschichts- und Heimatblätter. Volume 7, No. 2, 1965, pp. 233-239.
Renate Hauschild-Thiessen: Sunday, August. In: Franklin Kopitzsch , Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . Lexicon of persons. Volume 2, Christians, 2003, ISBN 3-7672-1366-4 , p. 399.

Web links

Biography ( December 19, 2013 memento on the Internet Archive ) on the Dudley Observatory website, Schenectady, New York
Publications by A. Sonntag in the Astrophysics Data System

Individual evidence

^ Letter from Adolph Cornelius Petersen to Carl Friedrich Gauß, June 21, 1851, Gauß letter database .
^ Letter from Kane to Alexander von Humboldt of January 26, 1853. In: Ingo Schwarz: Alexander von Humboldt and the United States of America . (= Contributions to Alexander von Humboldt Research , Volume 19, 2004) p. 310f. ISBN 3-05-002776-2
↑ August Sonntag: Observations on terrestrial magnetism in Mexico Conducted under the direction of Baron von Müller, with notes and illustrations of an examination of the volcano Popocatepetl and its vicinity . Smithsonian Institution, Washington 1860
^ Isaac Israel Hayes: The Open Polar Sea. Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery in the Schooner "United States" . Hurd and Houghton, New York 1867, p. 10
^ Hans Hendrik: Memoirs of Hans Hendrik, the Arctic Traveler, Serving under Kane, Hayes, Hall and Nares 1853–1876 , Trübner & Co., Ludgate Hill 1878, p. 38f. (English)

personal data
SURNAME	Sunday August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German astronomer and polar explorer
DATE OF BIRTH	August 22, 1832
PLACE OF BIRTH	Altona
DATE OF DEATH	December 1860
Place of death	Sarfalik , Greenland

[1] Letter from Adolph Cornelius Petersen to Carl Friedrich Gauß, June 21, 1851, Gauß letter database .

[2] Letter from Kane to Alexander von Humboldt of January 26, 1853. In: Ingo Schwarz: Alexander von Humboldt and the United States of America . (= Contributions to Alexander von Humboldt Research , Volume 19, 2004) p. 310f. ISBN 3-05-002776-2

[3] August Sonntag: Observations on terrestrial magnetism in Mexico Conducted under the direction of Baron von Müller, with notes and illustrations of an examination of the volcano Popocatepetl and its vicinity . Smithsonian Institution, Washington 1860

[4] Isaac Israel Hayes: The Open Polar Sea. Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery in the Schooner "United States" . Hurd and Houghton, New York 1867, p. 10

[5] Hans Hendrik: Memoirs of Hans Hendrik, the Arctic Traveler, Serving under Kane, Hayes, Hall and Nares 1853–1876 , Trübner & Co., Ludgate Hill 1878, p. 38f. (English)