German explorer and chemist who travelled in Siberia. Johann Gottlieb Georgi was the leader of an expedition to Siberia, on which he spent some time around Lake Baikal. In 1775 he published his report Bemerkungen einer Reise im Russischen Reich im Jahre 1772 (Notes from a journey in the Russian Empire in 1772). While in Siberia he often worked with members of other expeditions such as P.S. Pallas and J.P. Falck, becoming good friends with the latter who suffered from depression and eventually committed suicide. In Falck's final year Georgi was amongst the only people he could talk to without suffering from fits of anxiety and was the one who found him dead in his room in Kazan in 1774.

After the death of his friend Georgi took Falck's manuscripts and specimens back to the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg and was eventually tasked with editing and publishing his findings. He went on to produce three thick volumes of over 1,000 pages. Later (1797- 1802) Georgi published his own Geographisch-physikalische und naturhistorische Beschreibung des Russischen Reichs zur Uebersicht bisheriger Kenntnisse von demselben, a work on the topography and natural history of the Russian Empire. Many of his herbarium sheets were acquired by Peter Simon Pallas, part of whose collection found its way via Sir joseph Banks to BM (the Natural History Museum, London).

Sources:
I. Svanberg, 1986, "Turkic Ethnobotany and Ethnozoology as Recorded by Johan Peter Falck", Svenska Linné-Sällskapets Åsskrift, 1986-1987: 53-118.