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Rennell, James

(Encyclopedia)Rennell, James, 1742–1830, English cartographer, geographer, and oceanographer. He was surveyor general (1764–77) of Bengal and published A Bengal Atlas (1779). He constructed the first approximat...

Ptolemy

(Encyclopedia)Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus), fl. 2d cent. a.d., celebrated Greco-Egyptian mathematician, astronomer, and geographer. He made his observations in Alexandria and was the last great astronomer of ancie...

Münster, Sebastian

(Encyclopedia)Münster, Sebastian sābäsˈtyänˌ münˈstər [key], 1489–1552, German scholar and geographer. He was a Franciscan monk but after the Reformation became a Protestant and taught at Heidelberg and ...

Brigham, Albert Perry

(Encyclopedia)Brigham, Albert Perry, 1855–1932, American geographer, b. Perry, N.Y., grad. Colgate Univ., 1879, M. A. Harvard, 1892. After nine years in the Baptist ministry (1882–91) he became professor of geo...

Smith, Sir George Adam

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Sir George Adam, 1856–1942, Scottish biblical scholar and Hebraist, b. Calcutta (now Kolkata), India. He was professor of Old Testament language, literature, and theology in the United Free C...

Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de

(Encyclopedia)Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de kärˈlōs ᵺā sēgwānˈsä ē gōngˈgōrä [key], 1645–1700, Mexican writer and humanist. The foremost intellectual figure of colonial Mexico, he wrote on mathem...

Hettner, Alfred

(Encyclopedia)Hettner, Alfred älˈfrĕt hĕtˈnər [key], 1859–1942, German geographer and teacher; a founder of modern German geography. His methodology and his materialistic philosophy, grounded in the work of...

San Marcos, University of

(Encyclopedia)San Marcos, University of, at Lima, Peru; the first university in South America; founded 1551 by the Spanish king Charles I (Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) and recognized by papal bull in 1571; closed ...

Mercator, Gerardus

(Encyclopedia)Mercator, Gerardus gārˈhärt krāˈmər [key], 1512–94, Flemish geographer, mathematician, and cartographer. He studied in Louvain, where he had a geographical establishment (1534). From 1537 to 1...

gold rush

(Encyclopedia)gold rush, influx of prospectors, merchants, adventurers, and others to newly discovered gold fields. One of the most famous of these stampedes in pursuit of riches was the California gold rush. The d...