1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Krümmel, Otto

KRÜMMEL, OTTO (1854–1912), German geographer, was born at Exin, near Bromberg, July 8 1854. He was educated principally in the university of Göttingen, and approached the subject of geography at first through the study of classics, and by the historical road. But in 1883 he succeeded to the chair of geography at Kiel, and in that seaport found the connexion of his subject with marine investigations which directed his subsequent career. He retained his chair at Kiel until 1911, and during his tenure of it he introduced the science of oceanography to public interest through his handbook Der Ozean (1886), completed Boguslavsky’s work on oceanography in Ratzel’s series of geographical handbooks (1887), joined, and published an account of, the “Plankton expedition” on board the “National” in the North Atlantic Ocean (1889), served on the International Council for the Study of the Sea (1900–9), and finally produced the great work of his life, the Handbuch der Ozeanographie, in 1907–11. In 1911 Krümmel quitted Kiel to take up the professorship of geography at Marburg. He died at Cologne Oct. 12 1912.