Georg Wilhelm Steller is a physician of German origin, naturalist who contributed to the natural history and botany of Russia. He found his place at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, also participated in the Second Kamchatka expedition of Vitus Bering. He was the first to investigate the nature of Kamchatka and the northwestern part of America.
Becoming a scientist
Georg Steller was born on March 10, 1709 in Windsheim, a small free town in Franconia. At the age of 5 he began his studies at the city gymnasium. Classes were conducted in Latin and lasted 15 years. Steller's talent was not long in coming. The future scientist immediately became the first student in academic performance. He graduated from high school in 1729 and then continued his studies at the theological faculty of the University of Wittenberg, then in Halle. The natural sciences, anatomy of animals and humans fell into the field of study.
Hofmann made a great contribution to training and education. He advised Georg to take the botany exams in Berlin. He, of course, passed them brilliantly. Later, the position of professor of botany appeared at the University of Gaul, and Steller wanted to take it, but King Friedrich Wilhelm refused him. Soon, Steller's completely different life begins, filled with travel and discoveries.
Fateful acquaintance with Prokopovich. First trip
And again, Hoffman advises the scientist to try his luck in Russia as a professor of botany at the Academy of Sciences. In 1734, the scientist stays in St. Petersburg, where he later converges with Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich, who played an important role in his life. The archbishop invited the young scientist to become his attending physician, who agreed. Prokopovich told Steller about V. Bering's Second Kamchatka Expedition, and therefore decided to study the territories of Eastern Siberia. Then, with the help of Prokopovich, he was recruited into the service of the Academy of Sciences as an adjunct of natural history at the Kamchatka expedition.
May 1740 - arrival in Yakutsk, then Udomsk and Okhotsk and Kamchatka. Goes aboard as a naturalist. The journey began on June 4, 1741, when St. Peter under the command of Bering went from Kamchatka to the shores of America. Steller keeps diaries throughout, in which he writes about the ship, islands, flora and fauna.
The path passed through the east and northeast, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. At that time, the journey took a month and a half. Soon the ship saw snow-covered mountain ranges, and then approached the island of Kodiak, where Steller was able to go to uncharted land for 6 hours. There he described the flora and fauna of the island, finding 160 species of plants, ground squirrels, sea otters, seals, whales, sharks.
September 6, 1741: “St. Peter”is unanchored and heading west. The path was very difficult. The team began to suffer from scurvy due to the lack of fresh food. Storms, pain, torment overtook most of the people. Only two months later the ship's crew saw the land. Bereng fell ill with his team and decided to land on the shore near an unknown island, which later received his name. The captain died soon after.
The struggle for the life of the team continued, Steller's diligence was consolidated due to the harshest conditions. Hunting for animals, collecting plants fell on his shoulders, because he knew everything, because he was a botanist. The scientist collected collections of fish, herbarium, birds. Steller is the only naturalist who has seen the famous cormorant bird alive. She weighed 12-14 pounds and was almost unable to fly due to her small wings.
Return
In August 1742, the team returned to Kamchatka, Steller began to actively explore the peninsula again. In the period from 1742 to 1744, the scientist completely traveled to Kamchatka, visited all the forts, collected collections of animals and plants. Conducts historical and linguistic research. As a result, he came to the conclusion that the study of Kamchatka is important for the future economy of Russia, since it was an excellent area for development, livestock breeding, and the construction of new Russian settlements.
August 1744 - the end of the 2nd Kamchatka expedition on the skerboat "Elizaveta", crossing to Okhotsk. Further, the journey went through Yakutsk, Irkutsk, Tomsk. In Tyumen, Steller fell ill with a fever and died. The grave has not survived, the scientist was only 37 years old. But in such a short period of time, he managed to make a huge number of discoveries and make an immeasurable contribution to the study of the flora and fauna of Russia. The manuscripts and rough notes were transferred to the Academy of Sciences, where they are kept in its archives in St. Petersburg to this day. Russian academicians used these materials: S. P. Krasheninnikov (in his book "Description of the Land of Kamchatka"), PS Pallas, F. F. Brandt, A. F. Middendorf.
Steller was also famous for his writings describing Bering Island. "The diaries of a sea voyage from the Peter and Paul harbor in Kamchatka to America and the events that took place on the way back" were written in German. The mountains and glacier in the Gulf of Alaska are named after Steller.
Information about personal life, wife, children was not saved. Most likely, in such a busy and short period of time, the scientist simply did not have time to start a serious relationship. All his mind and strength were directed to work and research.
Writing a biography
The first biographer of Georg Steller was his brother John Augustine. They were in active correspondence. But the postal service was soon interrupted, John Augustine decided that it was worth publishing the biography of the outstanding brother. True, in the end it turned out to be a lot of blunders about Steller's travels, although there were valuable details about Georg's life in Germany. In the works of P. P. Pekarsky 1870, you can find information about Steller. Then in 1936 L. G. Steineger, a naturalist at Cambridge, published a biography of the scientist based on materials from the archive.
