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 770 KARSTEN KASHGAR Berlin, Oct. 12, 1791. She was a servant, showed talent for improvisation which at- tracted notice, and her poverty was relieved by the sale of her select poems (1764). Fred- erick William II. presented her with a small house in Berlin. She was called the German Sappho. She was divorced from her first hus- band, who had ill-treated her. By the sec- ond, Karsch, an intemperate tailor and spend- thrift, she had a daughter (K. L. von Klenke, died in 1812), who became known in litera- ture, as did also her granddaughter (died in 1856), the wife of the French orientalist Chezy. KARSTEN, Karl Joliann Bernhard, a German mineralogist, born at BOtzow, Nov. 26, 1782, died near Berlin, Aug. 22, 1853. Like many of his relatives, he acquired scientific promi- nence. He was for over 40 years chief of the mining department in the Prussian ministry of the interior, and published manuals and other works relating to mining, mineralogy, and chemistry. His sons HERMANN (born in 1809) and GUSTAV (born in 1820) attained high rank in astronomy and physics, and his nephew HERMANN the younger (born in 1817) as a naturalist and traveller. The latter gradu- ated at Berlin in 1843, explored South Amer- ica during 13 years, and subsequently became professor of botany at the Berlin university. Among his works are : Flora Columbia (2 vols., Berlin, 1857-'66) ; Die geognostischen Verhaltnisse Neu-Granadas (Vienna, 1856); Qesammelte Beitrage zur Anatomie und Physi- ologic der Pflanzen (Berlin, 1865) ; and Ghe- mismus der Pflanzenzelle (Vienna, 1869). k istv See KAZAN. KASBIN. See OASBIN. K isril U (Hun. Kassa), a town of N. Hungary, capital of the county of Abanj, 133 m. N. E. of Pesth ; pop. in 1870, 21,742, consisting of Slovaks, Magyars, Germans, and Jews. It is situated on the Hernad, in a beau- tiful valley enclosed with sloping vineyards. It is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, is one of the best built towns of Hungary, has important schools and other institutions, and is the chief commercial link between Pesth and Debreczin on one side and Cracow and Lem- berg on the other, with all of which places it is con- nected by railway lines. Its manufactures are unimpor- tant. The cathedral of Kaschau, a large struc- ture in old Gothic, is the finest building of the country in that style. Kaschau was surround- ed with walls in the latter half of the 13th century, and subsequently played an important part in the wars of Hungary, especially during the struggles of the Protestants against Aus- tria. In the last war two battles were fought before the town on Dec. 11, 1848, and Jan. 4, 1849, in both of which Gen. Schlick defeated the Hungarian troops, who were mostly undis- ciplined militia. KASHAN, a city of Persia, in the province of Irak-Ajemi, about 90 m. N. by W. of Ispahan, on the route to Teheran; pop., according to Mounsey (1866), about 15,000. It stands in the midst of a barren but stonoless plain near the western extremity of the Great Salt desert. It is said to have been founded by Zobeidah, the favorite sultana of Haroun al - Rashid. Mosques and public baths are the chief build- ings, though none of these are especially beau- tiful or noteworthy. The principal manufac- tures are silk brocades and copper kettles and pans. The town has an unpleasant reputation throughout western Persia for its scorpions, by which its houses are everywhere infested. Four miles W. of Kashan, at the foot of some mountains which here project into the plain, is a beautiful palace surrounded by gardens, which has been at various times a place of re- tirement for Persian officials. KASHGAR. I. A province of East Turkis- tan, between lat. 36 30' and 41 N., and Ion. 72 and 77 30' E. ; area, about 57,000 sq. m. It lies in the basin of the Kizil Darya and its tributaries. This river flows eastward 500 m. along the southern slope of the Thian-shan range, into the Yarkand river. Some parts of Kashgar are very fertile, and produce large crops of wheat, barley, rice, cotton, and hemp, while cultivated fruits are abundant. The Kashgar. province was anciently included in the great Tartar kingdom of central Asia. When that was dismembered, Kashgar, together with the rest of East Turkistan, came under the govern- ment of a local Mohammedan dynasty, whence sprang numerous factions which disputed the supremacy until the middle of the 18th centu-