Drygalski, Erich Dagobert Von

Born Feb. 9, 1865, in Konigsberg; died Jan. 10, 1949, in Munich. German geophysicist and polar explorer. Professor at the University of Munich (from 1906 to 1935).

Drygalski led two expeditions (1891 and 1892-93) of the Geographical Society in Berlin to the west coast of Green-land in order to investigate the ice cap. From 1901 to 1903 he directed the German antarctic expedition on the ship Gauss. On the way to Antarctica he established a meteorological and magnetic station on Kerguelen Island. In 1902 he discovered and explored a region of Antarctica that received the name Wilhelm II Land and explored and named Mount Gaussberg. On the basis of the materials gathered during his polar travels, Drygalski developed a theory of moving ice masses that retains importance to this day. Mountains in Queen Maud Land, an ice shelf in Victoria Land, and an island in the Davis Sea were named after Drygalski. From 1910 to 1912, Drygalski was a member of the expedition to Spitsbergen for the purpose of studying the possibility of using dirigibles in the arctic.