The New International Encyclopædia/Weyprecht, Karl

WEYPRECHT, vī′prĕKt, Karl (1838-81). A German Polar explorer, born near Michelstadt, Hesse. He entered the Austrian navy in 1856, and with Payer undertook, in 1871, an expedition to Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, and in 1872-74 led the great Austrian Arctic expedition, the result of which was the discovery and exploration of Franz Josef Land. At the meeting of German naturalists at Gratz in 1875, he proposed a plan to substitute for the polar expeditions a systematic exploration by means of an international system of permanent observation stations. This plan was carried into effect in 1882-83, after Weyprecht had died at Michelstadt. He published: Die Metamorphosen des Polareises ( 1879); Astronomische und geodätische Bestimungen der österreichisch-ungarischen arktischen Expedition (1877); Praktische Anleitung zur Beobachtung der Polarlichter und der magnetischen Erscheinungen in hohen Breiten (1881), besides contributions to Petermann's Mitteilungen and other periodicals. Consult Littrow, Karl Weyprecht, Erinnerungen und Briefe (Vienna, 1881).