Ernst Behm was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 geographer

Geographer

A geographer is a scholar whose area of study is geography, the study of Earth's natural environment and human society.Although geographers are historically known as people who make maps, map making is actually the field of study of cartography, a subset of geography...

 and statistician

Statistician

A statistician is someone who works with theoretical or applied statistics. The profession exists in both the private and public sectors. The core of that work is to measure, interpret, and describe the world and human activity patterns within it...

 who was a native of Gotha

Gotha (town)

Gotha is a town in Thuringia, within the central core of Germany. It is the capital of the district of Gotha.- History :The town has existed at least since the 8th century, when it was mentioned in a document signed by Charlemagne as Villa Gotaha . Its importance derives from having been chosen in...

.

Behm studied medicine and sciences at the Universities of Jena, Berlin and Würzburg

University of Würzburg

The University of Würzburg is a university in Würzburg, Germany, founded in 1402. The university is a member of the distinguished Coimbra Group.-Name:...

, and in 1856 began work as an editor at Petermanns Geographischen Mitteilungen in Gotha. This publication was a German language

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 journal of geography

Geography

Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...

 founded by August Heinrich Petermann

August Heinrich Petermann

August Heinrich Petermann was a German cartographer.-Early years:Petermann was born in Bleicherode, Germany. When he was 14 years old he started grammar school in the nearby town of Nordhausen...

.

In 1866 he became editor of Geographische Jahrbuch (Geographic Annals), and in 1872 with Hermann Wagner

Hermann Wagner (geographer)

Hermann Wagner was a German geographer and cartographer who was a native of Erlangen. He was the son of anatomist Rudolf Wagner and brother to economist Adolph Wagner ....

 (1840–1929) founded the geographical/statistical review, Die Bevölkerung der Erde. Starting in 1876 he headed the editorial staff of the statistical section of the Gothaischen Hofkalenders, and in 1878 following the death of Petermann, he became editor of Petermanns Geographischen Mitteilungen.

In 1872 Behm published an article (Beweise für die Identität des Lualaba mit dem Congo), which scientifically demonstrated that the Lualaba was a headstream of the 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...

. This claim was later confirmed as factual by explorer Henry Morton Stanley

Henry Morton Stanley

Sir Henry Morton Stanley, GCB, born John Rowlands , was a Welsh journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of Africa and his search for David Livingstone. Upon finding Livingstone, Stanley allegedly uttered the now-famous greeting, "Dr...

in 1877.