Adolph Lindenkohl

Background

Adolph Lindenkohl was born on March 6, 1833 at Niederkaufungen, Hesse Cassel, Germany, fifth of the nine children of George C. F. Lindenkohl and Anna Elizabeth (Krug).

Education

At Cassel Lindenkohl received the thorough education of the Realschule and later of the Polytechnische Schule, graduating from the latter in 1852.

Career

In 1852 Lindenkohl came to the United States with an elder sister and engaged in teaching in private schools, first in York, Pennsylvania, and then in Washington, D. C. In 1854 he joined the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey as cartographic draftsman, and here he labored for practically half a century, rising step by step to the position of senior cartographic draftsman. He became a citizen of the United States in 1857, and at different times during the Civil War was assigned to duty with the army, serving as a topographer on the defenses of Baltimore, and assisting in a topographic survey of the Potomac River and in the compilation of cartographic data for the department of West Virginia.

Lindenkohl's official duties were wholly of a technical nature, connected with the production of hydrographic charts; and his charts published by the Coast and Geodetic Survey are notable examples of high technique in engraving, etching, and lithography.

Being possessed of a scientific bent of mind, he went behind the data shown on the charts and related them to the broader fields of scientific inquiry. He mastered the mathematical principles of projections and became recognized as a leading authority on the subject.

In the field of oceanography, the submarine channel of the Hudson River, which can be followed clearly on a hydrographic chart for a number of miles out into the open sea, was a problem that early engaged his attention. In the Report, 1884, of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and in the American Journal of Science, June 1885, he presents a careful study of this channel, tracing its connection with the geological features of the adjacent coastal region, and concluding that it was brought about by glacial action. Other papers, which appeared in the annual reports of the Coast and Geodetic Survey, in Petermann's Mitteilungen, and in various other journals, dealt with the Gulf Stream, the circulation in the Gulf of Mexico, and with the temperature and salinity of the North Pacific Ocean.

He was not a prolific writer, but each of his publications is a carefully prepared paper, informed by broad scholarship. These papers stimulated interest and encouraged discussion in the field of oceanography, which at that time counted but few active workers in this country.

Achievements

• Lindenkohl gained his early fame for creating up to date maps of the United States. His map of New York City and environs, printed privately in New York City in 1860 and engraved by his brother, Henry Lindenkohl, was an outstanding example of cartographic art of that day. He made the first transverse polyconic map of the United States; he pointed out the advantages of the transverse polyconic projection for reducing scale error for mapping regions of considerable extension in longitude; and he directed attention to the advantages of the transverse mercator projection in the solution of certain cartographic problems.

Connections

In 1872 Lindenkohl married Pauline Praeger of Baltimore. Three boys and three girls were born to them between the years 1873 and 1883.

Father:

George C. F. Lindenkohl

Mother:

Anna Elizabeth (Krug) Lindenkohl

Spouse:

Pauline Praeger

Brother:

Henry Lindenkohl