OUTSTANDING RUSSIAN NATURALIST EDUARD AHNERT (1865-1946). HIS LIFE AND CONTRIBUTION TO OROGRAPHY AND GEOMORPHOLOGY OF THE FAR EAST LATE IN THE 19TH-FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Eduard Ahnert (1865-1946), scientist of world level, outstanding Russian naturalist, geologist and mining engineer who dedicated many years of his life to geomorphological studies of Siberia, the Far East and Manchuria summed up in his talented monographs. He discovered the Zhalainuo'er in Inner Mongolia (China), five oil fields on Sakhalin, studied practically all goldfields, coal fields and mineral deposits of Easter Siberia and the Far East. He is the author of a contemporary orographic scheme of the Far East. His scientific, teaching and public activity was vast and varied. He was an honorary or a full member of nearly all scientific-technical societies-Geographic, Free-Economic, Mineralogical and Paleontological-of pre-revolutionary Russia. This outstanding scientist was welcomed as member to many scientific communities abroad; he was an honorary corresponding member of the National and Geological Service of China in Beijing, the Chinese Institute of Mineralogy and Metallurgy, the American Geographic Society in New York, Deutsche Akademie in Munich and honorary doctor of natural science of Königsberg University. He was co-founder and lifetime member of the Society for the Study of Manchuria, chairman of the sector of geology and physical geography and head of the geology sub-section. He was member of the International Committee on Geological Studies of the Mountain Ridges in the coastal zone of the Pacific, a National Organization of Przhevalsky Researchers and the society of Russian engineers in Harbin. In 1929-1944, he chaired the Club of Natural Science and Geography at the Christian Union of Young People in Harbin. In 1902, he joined the Geologisches Zentralblatt as a reviewer of geological works related to the Far East; since 1939 he was one of the most active members of the Geologische Jahresberichte. As a delegate he attended, in 1928-1941 the all-Russia congresses on applied geography, land survey and gold extraction; the 1st Congress of the Studies of the Ussury Area, geological congresses in China and Manchuria and international geographic-geological congresses in Washington, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo. The majority of his works were translated into foreign tongues and published in Germany, the Netherlands, China, Manchuria, the U.S., France and Japan. His Puteshestvia po Manchurii (Travels across Manchuria) published in 1904 earned him the Big Przhevalsky Medal of the Russian Geographic Society. None of the works available to me mention Eduard Ahnert as a naturalist of a wide scientific horizon, as a geographer and geomorphologist with several geographic discoveries to his name who made a great contribution to the original orographic scheme of the Far East with structured content. Here I have concentrated on this side of his activities and his life.