The New International Encyclopædia/Ainsworth, William Francis

AINSWORTH, William Francis (1807-96). An English physician, geologist, and traveler. He was born in Exeter, and graduated in medicine at Edinburgh in 1827. He then traveled in France, and prosecuted geological investigations in the Auvergne and Pyrenean mountains. On his return in 1828 he conducted the Journal of Natural and Geographical Science, and delivered lectures on geology. In 1835 he was attached as physician and geologist to the Euphrates expedition under Colonel Chesney, and returned home in 1837 through Kurdistan, the Taurus, and Asia Minor, visiting the latter again the following year. He published Researches in Assyria (1838). He also published The Claims of the Christian Aborigines in the East (1843) and Travels in the Track of the Ten Thousand Greeks (1844). He was for a time editor of the New Monthly Magazine. He was a member of many learned societies.