Robert Kennicott

Robert Kennicott

Robert Kennicott (born November 13, 1835 in New Orleans , † May 13, 1866 in Alaska ) was an American naturalist .

Life

Kennicott was born in New Orleans and grew up in Chicago . From 1853 he worked for Spencer Fullerton Baird at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington , where he became a senior member of the Megatherium Club . In April 1859 he went on an expedition to collect natural history specimens in the subarctic boreal forests in northwest Canada , today's Mackenzie and Yukon river valleys and the arctic tundra further north . Kennicott made friends with fur traders from the Hudson's Bay Companyin this area and encouraged them to collect natural history pieces and objects of the indigenous people ( Inuit and Métis ) and send them to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. In 1862 he returned to Washington himself.

In 1865, the Western Union Telegraph Expedition set out to find a possible communications route between North America and Russia across the Bering Sea . Kennicott was selected as the scientist for this; among the company of scientists who assisted him were William Healey Dall and Ottfried von Bendeleben .

The expedition arrived in San Francisco in April , but disputes between the expedition leaders meant there were few results. The company went north to Vancouver, where Kennicott fell ill. After his recovery he was drawn to the north again, to Alaska . He died of a heart attack while hiking up the Yukon River.

Honors

The Kennicott Glacier , Kennicott Valley , Kennicott River and the ghost town of Kennicott in Alaska are named after Kennicott . In addition, several animal species were named after him, such as the Western Screech Owl ( Megascops kennicottii ) and several species of fish.

literature

• Audubon to Xʹantus. The lives of those commemorated in North American bird names . London; San Diego: Academic Press, © 1992. ISBN 0124874231

Web links

Commons : Robert Kennicott  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files