The New International Encyclopædia/Büsching, Anton Friedrich

BÜSCHING, bụ'shĭng, (1724-93). A German geographer. He was born in Stadthagen, in Schaumburg-Lippe, and studied theology at Halle, where he enjoyed the friendship of Baumgarten. In 1754 he was appointed professor of philosophy in Göttingen, but in 1761 accepted an invitation to Saint Petersburg as preacher to a Protestant congregation there. In 1766 he was called to Berlin as superior consistorial councilor and director of a gymnasium, and died there. Until the appearance of Büsching's Neue Erdbeschreibung (11 vols., 1754-92), neither Germany nor any other nation possessed a geographical work which made any pretension to scientific treatment or completeness of execution. Political changes have deprived the work of its original value, but it has been corrected and edited by subsequent writers. Of his other numerous publications, the most important is the Magazin für Historiographie und Geographie (25 vols., 1767-93).