The New International Encyclopædia/Kohl, Johann Georg

KOHL, kōl, Johann Georg (1808-78). A distinguished German writer on travels and historian, born in Bremen. He studied law in Göttingen, Heidelberg, and Munich, for six years was tutor in a family in Courland, and, having traveled in Russia, made his home in Dresden in 1838. The favorable reception accorded to the accounts of his travels in Russia induced him to visit nearly every country of Europe, and to publish a series of interesting descriptions of those parts, during which period he also wrote: Der Verkehr und die Ansiedelungen der Menschen in ihrer Abhänngigkeit von der Gestaltung der Erdoberfläche (1841); Der Rhein (1851); Skizzen aus Natur und Völkerleben (1851); Die Donau (1854). He next spent four years (1854-58) in North America traveling and making geographical and historical researches, which resulted in the publication of: Reisen in Canada, New York und Pennsylvanien (1856); Reisen im Nordwesten der Vereinigten Staaten (1857); Kitschi-Gami oder Erzählung vom Oberen See (1859); Geschichte der Entdeckung Amerikas (1861); Geschichte des Golfstroms und seiner Erforschung (1868); History of the Discovery of the East Coast of North America, particularly the Coast of Maine (1869); and other works. On his return to Europe he settled in Bremen, where he was appointed city librarian in 1863. The more important of his other numerous works are: Nordwestdeutsche Skizzen (1864; 2d ed. 1873); Die Völker Europas (2ded. 1872); Die geographische Lage der Hauptstädte Europas (1874); Geschichte der Entdeckungsreisen und Schiffahrten zur Magellansstrasse (1877); and Die natürlichen Lockmittel des Völkerverkehrs (1878).