Georg Friedrich Karl Hartung (13 July 1821- 28 March 1891) was a pioneering German traveller and geologist. He is best known for several books and articles about the islands of Macaronesia, especially the Azores, Madeira and the Canary Islands. [1]
Hartung was born in Königsberg where his father owned a press and published the Hartungsche Zeitung. He studied agronomy at the University of Greifswald (1841-43) and studied geology privately under Gustav von Leonhard (1816–1878). He travelled widely into the tropics partly for health reasons. In Madeira he met the paleobotanist Oswald Heer and joined him on outings. He also met Charles Lyell in 1853-54 and accompanied him. He became interested in the theories of von Buch on mountain uplift and Lyell's ideas on them. [2] Hartung later travelled to Lanzarote and Fuertaventura on his own. He sketched the scenery and made notes on his geological observations. He wrote to others interested in geology and Alexander von Humboldt encouraged him to study the Azores. In 1857 he visited the Azores and wrote on the geology of Terceira Island. In 1858 he began to examine volcanic regions in Europe. He published his notes on Lanzarote, Fuertaventura, Madeira and Porto Santo Island. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Königsberg for his work on the geology of the Atlantic islands. In 1870 he travelled to the United States where he met Louis Agassiz. In 1873 he visited Scandinavia and began to study glaciation. The work of Hartung on the Azores [3] contains illustrations of scientific interest. Hartung also met and corresponded with Charles Darwin. [1] [4]
Selected works
- Hartung. Mitbeschreibung der fossilen reste, von Prof. H. G. Bronn ..., Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig, 1860.
- Fritsch, Karl Wilhelm Georg von Hartung, Georg Reiss, Johann Wilhelm. Tenerife geologisch-topographisch dargestellt, ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss vulkanischer Gebirge von K. v. Fritsch, G. Hartung und W. Reiss, J. Wurster, 16 pp., 1867.
- Hartung, Georg. Die geologischen Verhältnisse der Inseln Lanzarote und Fuertaventura, Zürich, 166 pp., 1857.
- Hartung, Georg. Betrachtungen über Erhebungskrater, ältere und neuere Eruptivmassen, nebst einer Schilderung der geologischen Verhältnisse der Insel Gran Canaria. Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig, 108 pp., 1862.
- Hartung, Georg. Originalzeichnungen und Probedrucke zu Illustrationen der geologischen Beschreibungen der Azoren und Kanarischen Inseln. 1850 [ca.]
