The New International Encyclopædia/Bessels, Emil

BESSELS,, (1847–88). A German scientist. He was born at Heidelberg, and studied at the universities of Jena and Heidelberg. In 1869 he made his first Polar journey, in the course of which he demonstrated the existence of the Gulf Stream to the east of Spitzbergen. In 1871 he accompanied the expedition under C. F. Hall (q.v.), as ship's physician and chief of the scientific department. His collections were lost in the wreck of the Polaris. He published: Scientific Results of the United States Arctic Expedition (1876) and Die amerikanische Nordpolexpedition (1878).