Oskar Lenz was a German-Austrian geologist

Geologist

A geologist is a scientist who studies the solid and liquid matter that constitutes the Earth as well as the processes and history that has shaped it. Geologists usually engage in studying geology. Geologists, studying more of an applied science than a theoretical one, must approach Geology using...

 and mineralogist who was a native of Leipzig

Leipzig

Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

.

In 1870 he earned his doctorate in mineralogy and geology at the University of Leipzig

University of Leipzig

The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...

. Three years later he became an Austrian citizen and a civil servant at the Imperial Geological Institute in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

.

In 1879-80 he led the first trans-Sahara expedition from Morocco to Senegal. The primary purpose of the expedition was to perform geological studies of the region, investigating the possibilities of iron ore deposits. In 1880, with his companion Cristobal Benítez, he became only the fourth European to visit the fabled city of Timbuktu

Timbuktu

Timbuktu , formerly also spelled Timbuctoo, is a town in the West African nation of Mali situated north of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. The town is the capital of the Timbuktu Region, one of the eight administrative regions of Mali...

. The others being, Alexander Gordon Laing

Alexander Gordon Laing

Major Alexander Gordon Laing was a Scottish explorer and the first European to reach Timbuktu via the north/south route.-Education and service:...

 (1826), René Caillié (1828) and Heinrich Barth

Heinrich Barth

Heinrich Barth was a German explorer of Africa and scholar.Barth is one of the greatest of the European explorers of Africa, not necessarily because of the length of his travels or the time he spent alone without European company in Africa, but because of his singular character.-Biography:Barth...

 (1853).

In 1885-87 he directed the Austro-Hungarian Congo Expedition, which involved crossing the African continent from the Congo

Congo Basin

The Congo Basin is the sedimentary basin that is the drainage of the Congo River of west equatorial Africa. The basin begins in the highlands of the East African Rift system with input from the Chambeshi River, the Uele and Ubangi Rivers in the upper reaches and the Lualaba River draining wetlands...

 eastward to the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

. The main reasons of this project were to survey the economic trade situation in the newly-established Congo Free State

Congo Free State

The Congo Free State was a large area in Central Africa which was privately controlled by Leopold II, King of the Belgians. Its origins lay in Leopold's attracting scientific, and humanitarian backing for a non-governmental organization, the Association internationale africaine...

 and to map the watershed between the Nile and Congo River

Congo River

The Congo River is a river in Africa, and is the deepest river in the world, with measured depths in excess of . It is the second largest river in the world by volume of water discharged, though it has only one-fifth the volume of the world's largest river, the Amazon...

s. On this expedition, he was accompanied by cartographer Oskar Baumann

Oscar Baumann

Oscar Baumann was an Austrian cartographer with a keen interest in ethnography.He attended classes on natural history and geography at the University of Vienna, and in 1885 was part of an Austrian exploratory expedition of the Congo Basin headed by Oskar Lenz. However, he had to leave the...

. Following the completion of his duties in Africa, he became a professor at the University of Prague.

Published works

• Skizzen aus Westafrika (Sketches of West Africa), (1878)
• Timbuktu: Reise durch Morokko die Sahara und den Sudan (Timbuktu, Journey through Morocco, the Sahara and the Sudan) (1884), translated into French in 1886 by Pierre Lehautcourt as Timbouctou, voyage au Maroc, au Sahara et au Soudan.. Gallica: Volume 1, Volume 2.
• Wanderungen in Afrika (Travels in Africa), (1895)