Schweinfurth

Schweinfurth, GEORG AUGUST (b. 1836), African traveller, was born at Riga, and became a doctor of philosophy at Berlin. He went to Africa in 1863, traversed the Nile valley as far as Khartoum, and made some botanical discoveries. On a second expedition he found the river Welle, a tributary of the Congo, and now called the Aruwimi. His valuable work, In the Heart of Africa (1871), records many interesting and important facts. He strongly opposed the extension of British influence in Africa. He was appointed director of the Natural History Museum at Cairo.