Karl Mauch

Karl Mauch ( born May 7, 1837 in Stetten in the Rems valley, † April 4, 1875 in Stuttgart ) was a German explorer of Africa, prospectors and cartographer.

Life

Karl Mauch was the son of the carpenter Joseph Mauch and his wife Christiane Dorothea Greiner. He finished his schooling at the Realschule in Ludwigsburg and began with 17 years teaching at Catholic teacher training college to study at Franciscan in Schwäbisch Gmünd. 1856 Mauch finished his studies and got a job in the following year as an assistant teacher in Isny.

1859 Mauch left of his own accord the civil service and worked until 1863 as a private tutor in various families in Styria. When visiting the Botanical Garden of the University of Graz, he was particularly interested in the African flora. Because he liked the profession of a teacher always less, Mauch applied in 1863 for a Hamburg shipping company and took almost two years at sea. About Mauch reached London in 1865 then Durban in South Africa. He announced and began to explore the country and people.

Mauch wandered 1865-1871 Southern Africa, crossed the watershed between the Zambezi and Limpopo and came to the vicinity of Tete on the Zambezi.

In 1866 he made the acquaintance of the ivory hunter and adventurer Henry Hartley. With this he roamed the Matabele kingdom, and was aware of this quartz veins with visible gold shares at this time. In 1867 he penetrated to the northwest towards the Zambezi and discovered two large gold fields. On a third voyage (1868/1869) he came from the Transvaal Republic on the Limpopo to the mission station Inyati ( Nordmatabeleland in present-day Zimbabwe). In 1870 he undertook a journey to Delagoa Bay. In 1871 he discovered the ruins of Great Zimbabwe in Masvingo, which he then assigned to the ancient Seehandelsziel King Solomon of Israel Ophir. Then he passed through the upper reaches of the Zambezi River, where he found a gold field (Kaiser - Wilhelm - field).

Mauch published a short time after these trips, his experiences and observations that had a major impact mainly in the Cape Colony, the Boers States and in England. On the British side, his reports to attract attention even in the colonial administration. It was made around 1870 more gold was discovered, who moved very quickly in the area of the later Southern Rhodesia ups of Gold mining companies after themselves.

1871 came the now malaria sufferers back to Germany. He traveled later in the Caribbean. By the time he began to doubt his own Ophir Zimbabwe theory.

1872 awarded the Royal Geographical Society Mauch's "Discoveries in South-East Africa " with 25 pounds sterling. As revealed for Mauch in Germany no opportunities to do scientific work, he earned his living from 1874 as Managing Director of the cement factory " Spohn & Ruthard " in Blaubeuren. He lived there in a furnished room in the station building.

On the night of 26 to 27 March 1875, he suffered probably an asthma attack. He went to the window and rushed outside, where he head injury, liver cracks and broken ribs and also drew upon the spine broke. When he was probably found hours after the fall, he was conscious, but could not remember what had happened. He was taken to Stuttgart Louis hospital, where he died on April 4, 1875. Three days later he was buried in the Prague Cemetery. The tomb was destroyed during the Second World War, but in 1977 reconstructed.

1991/92 commemorated the Central State Archive Stuttgart, which secures his estate, under the title A Schwabe in gold land of Ophir? The discovery of the ruins of Zimbabwe by Karl Mauch in 1871 with a small exhibition of the traveler. A permanent exhibition on Karl Mauch is located in the Museum of the Y- castle in Stetten.

Honors

• Karl Mauch - school in his birthplace Stetten
• Mauchberg (1787 m, near Lydenburg in Mpumalanga)
• Mauchsberg, a settlement in the Thaba Chweu Local Municipality in the district Ehlanzeni

Works

• Carl Mauch 's Travels in the interior of South Africa. 1874 ( online)
• Travel in the interior of South Africa. In: Herbert Scurla (eds. ): Between Cape and Kilimanjaro. Publisher of the nation, Berlin 1974, DNB 750,204,168th