Eduard von Toll

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Eduard von Toll

Baron Eduard Gustav von Toll ( Russian Эдуард Васильевич Толль , Eduard Vasilyevich Toll ; born March 2, jul. / 14. March  1858 greg. In Reval ; † 1902 in the East Siberian Sea ) was a Russian naturalist and polar explorer Baltic German descent.

Life

Eduard was a member of the von Toll noble family .

While he was studying mineralogy , medicine and zoology at the University of Dorpat , he took part in a zoological and geological expedition to Algeria and the Balearic Islands . After his return, he defended his diploma thesis in the field of zoology in 1882 and stayed at the university as a laboratory assistant.

On the intercession of Friedrich Schmidt , Director of the Geological Museum of the Russian Academy of Sciences , Toll was able to participate in a polar expedition organized by the Academy and led by Alexander von Bunge to the Siberian mainland coast between the Lena Delta and the mouth of the Kolyma and to the New Siberian from 1885 to 1886 Participate islands . Most of the time, Toll and Bunge operated independently of each other. Toll initially explored the lower reaches of the Jana , wherein it comprises a special interest in the for Observations of woolly mammoth and wool rhino known sediments of permafrost showed. Then he traveled west along the coast to Bulun in the Lena Delta and back to Kasachye, where he wintered with Bunge. In March and April 1886, Toll traveled to the Buor-Jurach River, where a mammoth was found in 1863, to geologically examine the site. In May he and two Yakuts crossed to the Great Lyakhov Island and Kotelny Island , where he briefly met with Bunge. Separated from this again, he traveled eastwards via Bungeland , which he named after the expedition leader, and the Faddejewski Island to New Siberia . Then he returned to Kotelny Island and drove north on its west coast. On August 28, he thought he could see land in the northeast from the north coast of the Kotelny Island, as did Mathias von Hedenström and Jakow Sannikow 75 years earlier . Toll was convinced that he had rediscovered Sannikow-Land , which Pyotr Anjou had not been able to find between 1820 and 1824.

In 1893, Toll was entrusted by the Russian Academy of Sciences with the management of an expedition to northern Yakutia , whose primary task was to inspect the site of a recently discovered mammoth and, if possible, to bring the carcass to Saint Petersburg. In addition, he was given a relatively free hand for further undertakings. He decided to support Fridtjof Nansen on his Fram expedition not only by delivering sled dogs , but also by setting up supply depots on the New Siberian Islands, which would provide a safe place for them in the event that the Fram could not withstand the pressure of the ice Way into inhabited areas. Then Toll explored the lower course of the Lena and the Chatanga . The first researcher to map the plateau between Anabar and Popigai and the Prontschishcheva Ridge between Olenjok and Anabar, whom he named after the Russian polar explorer Vasily Prontschishchev , was great .

In 1899 Toll participated as a geologist and marine biologist in Stepan Makarov's expedition on board the icebreaker Yermak to Spitsbergen .

Participants in the Zarya expedition: Kolchak, Matissen, Kolomeizew, Toll, Walter, Bialynizki-Birulja, Seeberg ( from left to right )

In the same year, the Academy granted him 180,000 rubles for a ship expedition to explore the Taimyr Peninsula and search for Sannikov land. In July he traveled to Norway and bought the schooner Harald Harfager , equipped with a 228 hp engine , which he renamed Sarja ("Dawn") and had it prepared for the voyage at Colin Archer's shipyard in Larvik . On 23 June 1900, the left Zarya under the command of Nikolai Nikolaevich Kolomeizew (1867-1944) the naval base Kronstadt . The scientific staff consisted of Toll, who was responsible for the geological work, of the zoologist Aleksei Andrejewitsch Bialynizki-Birulja (1864-1937), the astronomer Friedrich Seeberg and the ship's doctor and second zoologist Hermann von Walter . Second officer Alexander Wassiljewitsch Kolchak was responsible for the hydrological work . After a stopover in Dikson which went through Zarya the islands of the Kara Sea , while the in the shallow waters and little known Minin archipelago three times ran aground. The scientists landed on many islands, and Toll named a large number of geographical locations. For three weeks, the ship was in Middendorff Bay of drift ice trapped until it was released again and finally his berth for the first wintering in the September 26 Colin Archer bay south of the Nansen Island found. Since the fuel supplies had decreased significantly, Toll tried to ask the academy for a coal delivery to Kotelny Island. To this end, he sent Kolomeizew, with whom he had a tense relationship, in April 1901 with a letter on the mouth of the Yenisei . The first officer Fyodor Andreevich Matissen (1872–1921) took command of the Zarya .

In the spring and summer of 1901 Toll explored the coast of the Taimyr Peninsula up to the mouth of the Taimyra on extensive sleigh trips , while Matissen mapped the Nordenskiöld archipelago . The Sarja came out of the ice at the end of August and on September 2nd became the third ship to circumnavigate Cape Chelyuskin . The Laptev Sea was traversed in an easterly direction until Bennett Island came into view on September 11th . Toll soon had to realize that under the prevailing ice conditions he could neither reach Bennett Island nor Sannikow Land further north. So he took the ship to the west coast of Kotelny Island to spend the winter in Nerpalach Bay. Here he met an auxiliary expedition headed by the geologist KA Wollosowitsch, who was setting up food depots to secure Toll's expedition.

Toll went on a geological excursion with Wollosowitsch. On January 3, 1902, Hermann von Walter died of a heart attack and was buried two days later. Wollosowitsch accompanied him on his return trip to Yakutsk via Laptev Street and briefly visited the island of Stolbovoy on the way back . In April Toll sent Matissen by sledge north, where he was supposed to look for Sannikow-Land. In May Bialynitski-Birulja went to the island of New Siberia, which he explored thoroughly until December. He then traveled home independently of the rest of the expedition.

Kolchak mapped in May Belkovsky Island and Great traveled in June with Seeberg and two helpers, the Evenk Nikolai Protodjakonov and the Yakuts Vasily Gorokhov, with carriage for Bennett Island. Matissen had been instructed to pick up the group there with the Sarja again when the ship emerged from the ice on August 21, but did not succeed in approaching Bennett Island. According to his instructions for this case, he steered the ship to Tiksi , where it remained, and returned with the rest of the expedition via the Lena and overland to Saint Petersburg. Toll and Seeberg left Bennett Island with their Yakut helpers in November 1902 and disappeared without a trace. A rescue expedition led by Kolchak in 1903 found the diaries and scientific collections of the Zarya expedition, but Toll and his men were lost.

Honors

  • A mountain on Novaya Zemlya and the large ice cap on Bennett Island are named after Eduard von Toll, as are a bay on the Taimyr Peninsula and a cape on the island of Zirkul . In addition, a plateau on the Kotelny Island and the Nunatak Gora Tollja in Antarctica bear his name.
  • In 2017, the liquid gas tanker Eduard Toll was put into service by the project company Yamal LNG .

literature

Web links

Commons : Eduard von Toll  - Collection of images, videos and audio files