Eduard Vogel

Eduard Vogel (7 March 1829 – February 1856) was a German explorer in Central Africa.

Vogel was born in Krefeld. He studied mathematics, botany and astronomy at Leipzig and Berlin, studying with Encke at the latter institution. In 1851, he was engaged as assistant astronomer to director John Russel Hind at George Bishop's private observatory in London. That year August Heinrich Petermann introduced Vogel to the Royal Geographical Society.

In 1853 Petermann arranged for Vogel to be chosen by the British government to join the Richardson, Overweg and Barth expedition with supplies. That expedition had been sent to Africa in 1849 to find a trade route that bypassed the Arabs. Vogel was to be a replacement for Richardson who had died two years earlier and was tasked to make geographical and meteorological observations and to collect botanical specimens. In 1853, the expedition was in the western Sudan.

Vogel sailed from England on 20 February 1853. The day Vogel left London, news had arrived that Overweg had also died, leaving Barth on his own.

On 25 July, Vogel left Tripoli with a caravan to catch up with Barth. Vogel arrived at the end of the Trans-Saharan trade route, Kuka, the capital of Bornu on 13 January 1854. Vogel's specimens, and the fact that both expedition engineers were soldiers, made the king there suspicious of his intentions, and Vogel's movements were severely restricted.

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