August Heinrich Petermann - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

AUGUST HEINRICH PETERMANN (1822-1878), German cartographer, was born at Bleicherode, near Nordhausen, on the 18th of April 1822. At the age of seventeen he entered the Geographical School of Art in Potsdam, and in 1845 proceeded to Edinburgh to assist Dr Keith Johnston in the production of an English edition of the Physical Atlas of Berghaus. In 1847 he came to London, and published among other works, an account of Barth's expedition to Central Africa (1855). In 1854 he became director of the geographical institute of Justus Perthes in Gotha, and editor of the well-known Petermanns Mitteilungen. His work did much towards elucidating the geography of the interior of Africa and of the North Polar regions. Queen Victoria, at the suggestion of Bunsen, appointed him physical geographer-royal. Petermann died by his own hand at Gotha on the 25th of September 1878.