SCHWEINFURTH, GEORG AUGUST German traveller in East Central Africa and ethnologist, was born at Riga on Dec. 29, 1836. He was educated at the univer sities of Heidelberg, Munich and Berlin (1856-62), where he particularly devoted himself to botany and palaeontology. Com missioned to arrange the collections brought from the Sudan by Freiherr von Barnim and Dr. Hartmann, his attention was directed to that region; and in 1863 he travelled round the shores of the Red Sea, repeatedly traversed the district between that sea and the Nile, passed on to Khartoum, and returned to Europe in 1866. In 1868 the Humboldt-Stiftung of Berlin sent him on a scientific mission to the interior of East Africa. Starting from Khartoum in Jan. 1869, he went up the White Nile to Bahr-el-Ghazal, and then, with a party of ivory dealers, through the regions inhabited by the Diur (Dyoor), Dinka, Bongo and Niam-Niam; crossing the Nile watershed he entered the country of the Mangbettu (Mon buttu) and discovered the river Welle (March 19, 1870) which by its westward flow he knew was independent of the Nile. Schweinfurth formed the conclusion that it belonged to the Chad system, and it was several years before its connection with the Congo was demonstrated.
The discovery of the Welle was Schweinfurth's greatest geo graphical achievement ; he also elucidated the hydrography of the Bahr-el-Ghazal system. He described in detail the cannibalistic practices of the Mangbettu, and his discovery of the pygmy Akka settled conclusively the question as to the existence of dwarf races in tropical Africa. Unfortunately nearly all his collections
made up to that date were destroyed by a fire in his camp in Dec. 187o. He returned to Khartoum in July 1871 and published an account of the expedition, under the title of Im Herzen von Afrika (Leipzig, 1874, rev. ed. 1918; Eng. ed., The Heart of Africa, 1873, new ed. 1878). In 1873-74 he accompanied Gerhard Rohlfs in his expedition into the Libyan desert. Settling at Cairo in 1875, he devoted himself to African studies, historical and ethnographical. In 1876 he penetrated into the Arabian desert with Paul Giissfeldt, and continued his explorations therein at intervals until 1888, and during the same period made geological and botanical investigations in the Fayum, in the valley of the Nile, etc. In 1889 he removed to Berlin; but he visited the Italian colony of Eritrea in 1891, 1892 and 1894. Schweinfurth died in Berlin on Sept. 20, 1925. His botanical and geological collections were given to the Prussian State.
The accounts of all his travels and researches have appeared either in book or pamphlet form or in periodicals, such as Petermanns Mit teilungen, the Zeitschrift fur Erdkunde, etc. Among his works may be mentioned Artes Africanae; Illustrations and Descriptions of Produc tions of the Industrial Arts of Central African Tribes (1875).