1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Supan, Alexander Georg

SUPAN, ALEXANDER GEORG (1847-1920), Austrian geographer, was born at Innichen, South Tirol, March 3 1847. He was educated at the Laibach gymnasium, and in 1870 took his doctor's degree at Graz, afterwards becoming a teacher in the Oberrealschule at Laibach. In 1872 he left Laibach and studied geography at Vienna, Dresden and Halle, returning in 1877. In 1881 he was appointed professor of geography at the university of Czernowitz, and in 1884 became editor of Petermanns Mitteilungen, retaining this post until 1909, when he accepted the chair of geography at Breslau. Under Supan's editorship Petermanns Mitteilungen was more concerned with reports and accounts of geographical work in every sphere than with original papers and records of discovery, and a feature in which the editor was much interested was the publication of supplements to the Mitteilungen. An account of the economic produce of N. America, 1880-5, appeared in this manner in 1886, and Die Bevölkerung der Erde, founded 1872 by Hermann Wagner and Behm, was continued by Supan as a supplement from 1890 to 1910. In 1889 he became editor of the statistical calendar of the Almanack de Gotha. His original contributions to geographical science are chiefly concerned with climatology and oceanography, and his published works include Lehrbuch der Geographie (1873); Statistik der unteren Luftströmungen (1881); Grundzüge der physischen Erdkunde (1884); Deutsche Schulgeographie (1895; latest ed. 1915) and Die territorialische Entwicklung der europäischen Kolonien (1906), besides many papers in Petermanns Mitteilungen. He died at Breslau July 6 1920.