Robert Hermann Schomburgk

Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk ( born June 5, 1804 in Freyburg ( Unstrut); † March 11, 1865 in Schöneberg ) was a German explorer. Its official botanical author abbreviation is " RHSchomb. ".

Life and work

Schomburgks parents were Lutheran assistant pastor Johann Friedrich Ludwig Schomburgk and his wife Christiane Juliane Wilhelmine, born Krippendor. After school Schomburgk ( Saale) was initially trained as a merchant in Naumburg and went in 1828 to the United States. From there he came to the West Indies, where he especially Anegada explored. In 1835 he began using the British Geographical Society, a scientific expedition to Guyana (formerly British Guiana ), from which he returned in June 1839 after four years of results- rich activities. 1840, the British government commissioned him with the definition of the boundaries between British Guiana and Venezuela. With this role, he worked for several years, but determined a boundary line was ( the so-called Schomburgk line) of Venezuela is not recognized. In June 1844, he returned to England, where he was beaten by Queen Victoria knighted.

His numerous botanical and zoological discoveries, of which particularly the Victoria regia Lindl. sticking out, he bequeathed to the British Museum.

In August 1848, Schomburgk consul and chargé d'affaires at the Dominican Republic, where he was able to conclude an advantageous commercial treaty for England in May 1850 and gave the peace with the Haitian Emperor Faustin Soulouque. It was founded in 1856 the English Consul-General in Bangkok ( Siam), but returned in April 1864 sick back to Europe.

Robert Hermann Schomburgk died on 11 March 1865 in Berlin -Schöneberg. He was the brother of the botanist Moritz Richard Schomburgk ( 1811-1891 ).

According to Schomburgk named taxa

On June 9, 1859 Schomburgk was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

The extinct Schomburgk deer that once lived in Thailand, is named after him ( Rucervus schomburgki ( Blyth. ) ); Furthermore, the South African many spines ( Polycentrus schomburgkii M. et T. ), a small perch fish, including

Works

• Descriptions of British Guiana, geographical and statistical. London ( 1840)
• Views in the interior of Guiana. London ( 1840)
• Traveling in Guiana and the Orinoco River during the years 1835-1839. According to his reports and communications to the Society in London Geogr Edit. v. O. A. Schomburgk. With a foreword by Alexander v. Humboldt and his treatise on some important astronomical positions Guiana 's. Leipzig ( 1841)
• History of Barbados. London ( 1847)
• The Discoverie of Guiana by Sir W. Raleigh. London ( 1848)