BUSCH, WILHELM (1832-1908), German caricaturist, was born at Wiedensahl in Hanover on April 15, 1832, and died on Jan. 9, 1908. After studying at the academies of Dusseldorf, Antwerp and Munich, he joined in 1859 the staff of Fliegende Bldtter, the leading German comic paper, and was, together with Oberlander, the founder of modern German caricature. His humorous drawings and caricatures are remarkable for the ex treme simplicity and expressiveness of his pen-and-ink line, which record with a few rapid scrawls the most complicated contortions of the body and the most transitory movement. His humorous illustrated poems, such as Max and Moritz, Der heilige Antonius von Padua, Die Fromme Helene, Hans Huckebein and Die Erleb nisse Knopps des Junggesellen, play, in the German nursery, the same part that Edward Lear's nonsense verses do in England. He invented the series of comic sketches illustrating a story in scenes without words, which have inspired Caran d'Ache and his successors.
ANTON FRIEDRICH Ger man geographer, was born at Stadthagen, Schaumburg-Lippe, on Sept. 27, 1724; professor of philosophy at Gottingen (1754-57), pastor of the German congregation and director of a flourishing school at St. Petersburg (1761-65), and from 1766 onwards di rector of the Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster, founded at Berlin by Frederick the Great. By his writings and by his work as a teacher he gave a great impulse to education in Germany. He died in Berlin on May 28, 1793. Biisching was a prolific writer. His magnum opus is the unfinished Neue Erdesbeschreibung (8th ed. 1787-88), continued by Ebeling. This book, which laid the foundation of modern statistical geography, was published in parts between 1754 and 1761 (Eng. trans. by Murdoch, 6 vols., 1762). Other important works by Busching are Grundriss zu einer His torie der Philosophie (2 parts, 1772-74) ; and Beitrdge zur Lebens geschichte denkwiirdigen Personen (6 vols., He also edited two important geographical periodicals.