Oskar Lenz

Who was Oskar Lenz?

Oskar Lenz was a German-Austrian geologist and mineralogist who was a native of Leipzig.

In 1870 he earned his doctorate in mineralogy and geology at the University of Leipzig. Three years later he became an Austrian citizen and a civil servant at the Imperial Geological Institute in Vienna.

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. The others being, Alexander Gordon Laing, René Caillié and Heinrich Barth.

In 1885-87 he directed the Austro-Hungarian Congo Expedition, a mission that involved crossing the African continent from the Congo eastward to the Indian Ocean. The main reasons of the project were to survey the economic trade situation in the newly established Congo Free State and to map the Congo-Nile watershed between the Nile and Congo Rivers. On the expedition, he was accompanied by cartographer Oskar Baumann. Following the completion of his duties in Africa, he became a professor at the University of Prague.