The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Büsching, Anton Friedrich

BÜSCHING, Anton Friedrich, German geographer: b. Stadthagen, Schaumburg-Lippe, 27 Sept. 1724; d. Berlin, 28 May 1793. He studied theology in Halle from 1744 and was for a time mimster of a Protestant church in Saint Petersburg. When acting as a traveling tutor he became convinced of the defects of existing geographical treatises and resolved to write a new one which he began on his return to Germany in 1752 by publishing a short description of Schleswig and Holstein as a specimen. In 1754 he was made professor of philosophy in Göttingen. In 1766 he was made director of the united gymnasiums of Berlin and the suburb Kölln. Before his great ‘Erdbeschreibung,’ which he began to publish in 1754 in separate volumes, and which, though not entirely completed by the author, passed through eight editions during his life, neither the Germans nor any other nation had a thoroughly scientific geographical work. Another of his important writings is the ‘Magazin für Historiographie und Geographie’ (25 vols., 1767-83).