Wilhelm Sievers (geographer)

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Wilhelm Sievers on his first research trip to Colombia (1886)
Nuxalk Indians, chromolithography from the first edition of Allgemeine Länderkunde, Volume Amerika (1895).

Friedrich Wilhelm "Willy" Sievers (born December 3, 1860 in Hamburg ; † June 11, 1921 in Gießen ) was a German geographer and professor of geography at the University of Gießen and a privy councilor . Its official botanical author abbreviation is " W.Siev. "

Life

After graduating from the Gelehrtenschule of Johanneums Sievers studied at the University of Jena , especially history , at the University of Göttingen geography . The dissertation , which he at Hermann Wagner anfertigte in Göttingen, he finished in 1882. After graduation to Sievers employed at the University of Leipzig in Ferdinand von Richthofen Ferdinand Zirkel , Hermann Credner with geology , petrography , meteorology and physical geography.

Sievers learned Spanish in Göttingen and toured Venezuela and Colombia from 1884–86 . He was commissioned by the Berlin Geographical Society to investigate the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in northern Colombia . During the trip he managed the first ascent of Pico Pan de Azúcar (4680 m) near Mérida . After his return he completed his habilitation in 1887 at the University of Würzburg, and in 1890 moved to Giessen. Sievers became an associate professor there in 1891 and a full professor in 1903. Despite the turmoil of the civil war in Venezuela, he undertook his second research trip in 1892/93 . He visited Puerto Rico , researched the structure of the Venezuelan mountainous country and made excursions to the eastern Llanos .

In 1909 Sievers carried out a third research trip to the highlands of Peru and Ecuador . Here he was able to document further traces of early glaciation . He was the first to determine the source of the Marañon , the largest source river in the Amazon .

Wilhelm Sievers was the nephew of Eduard Wilhelm Sievers , 2nd cousin of Gustav Sievers and great-nephew of Gottlob Reinhold Sievers . In 1887 he was elected a member of the Leopoldina .

Services

Research trips in South America

geography

Edition of the large-scale Allgemeine Länderkunde in four editions (1891–1935) at the Bibliographical Institute , for several decades the international standard work of geography. A Russian translation of the first edition appeared in 1902–1908.

Local history research in Hessen

Sievers was the founder and (until 1908) chairman of the Society for Earth and Ethnology in Giessen in 1896 . He headed the editing of the association's series of publications , Geographische Mitteilungen aus Hessen (I-VI, Giessen 1900–1911). The writing on the knowledge of the Taunus (Stuttgart 1891) can also be mentioned.

Publications (selection)

South America

General geography

Main article: General area studies

  • General geography: first edition in five volumes , 1891–95
  • General geography: Second edition in six volumes , 1901–05
  • General geography: small edition in two volumes , 1907
  • Allgemeine Länderkunde: Third edition in six volumes , 1914 (edition incomplete due to the outbreak of war)
  • General geography: Lim. by W. Sievers , Third / Fourth Edition, 1924-35

Others

  • On the dependence of the current denomination distribution in southwest Germany on the earlier territorial borders (dissertation, February 15, 1882), Göttingen 1884.
  • To the knowledge of the Taunus , Stuttgart, 1891

literature

  • F. Oliver Brachfield: Sievers en Mérida. De los apuentes de un geógrafo alemán en la Cordillera - 1885 , Mérida 1951.
  • P. Claß: University Professor Dr. Wilhelm Sievers †. An obituary , Geographischer Anzeiger, 23rd year 1922, issue 1/2.
  • Rainer W. Gärtner:  Sievers, Friedrich Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 24, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-428-11205-0 , p. 391 f. ( Digitized version ).
  • Carlos Schubert: Hermann Karsten (1851) y Wilhelm Sievers (1888): las primeras descripciones e interpretaciones sobre el óigen de las terrazas aluviales en la Córdillera de Mérida . In: Boletín de Historia de las Geociencias en Venezuela , No. 44, pp. 15-19.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Curriculum vitae from the dissertation About d. Dependency d. current denomination distribution in Südwestdtld. vd earlier territorial borders , Göttingen 1882
  2. ^ Sievers, Friedrich Wilhelm (pseudonym Wilhelm Vermeulen). In: German biography. Retrieved May 30, 2020 .
  3. ^ Gärtner, Rainer W., "Sievers, Wilhelm", in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 24 (2010), pp. 391–392
  4. ^ Schwieger, Henry: Philipp Jakob Speners family and their (Gülich-Sieversche) branch in Hamburg , Hamburg 1911
personal data
SURNAME Sievers, Wilhelm
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sievers, Friedrich Wilhelm (full name); Sievers, Willy (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German geographer and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH December 3, 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1921
Place of death to water