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 KLAPROTH KLEBER KLAPROTH. I. Martin Heinrich, a German chemist, born at Wernigerode, Dec. 1, 1743, died in Berlin, Jan. 1, 1817. After being en- gaged for some years in Berlin as a practical chemist, he became an apothecary in 1780, and in 1787 was appointed professor of chemistry in the school of artillery. He was among the first who labored industriously in the classifi- cation of minerals by means of scientific anal- ysis. He is the discoverer of zirconium, tita- nium, uranium, a*hd tellurium. He first proved that potassium was found in volcanic products and in white garnets, and made known molyb- date of lead and sulphate of strontium. II. Heinrieh Julius von, a German traveller and ori- entalist, son of the preceding, born in Berlin, Oct. 11, 1783, died in Paris in August, 1835. Until the age of 15 he applied himself to chem- istry and natural science, and from that time to oriental languages. After two years spent at the university of Halle, he went in 1802 to Dresden, where he devoted eight months to the oriental MSS. of its library. Here he be- gan the publication of the AsiatiscJies Magazin. The Russian government sent him in 1805 with an embassy to Peking ; but being recalled be- fore crossing the frontier, he remained six months at Irkutsk and studied several Asiatic tongues. From this place he explored alone, in 1806, a wide range of the northern Chinese frontier. He returned to St. Petersburg in 1807, and was sent on a mission to the then almost unknown mountain regions of the Cau- casus. The results of his researches were so little favorable to the hope that Russia could readily acquire dominion over the country, that it was with the greatest difficulty that Klaproth obtained in 1810 permission to pub- lish an account of his expedition. The annoy- ances which he experienced on this occasion determined him to quit Russia, and two years later (1812) he obtained leave to depart. In 1814 he visited Italy, and finally went with the allied army to Paris, where he passed the re- mainder of his life. He remained for a long time the chief authority on various branches of Asiatic geography and philology; but of late the itineraries of his travels in central Asia have been subjected to most serious accusa- tions, and Sir H. C. Rawlinson, in a " Mono- graph on the Oxus " read before the royal geo- graphical society of London in 1872, declares the exposure of imposture in regard to three incriminated memoirs to have been fully es- tablished by Lord Strangf ord. His publications are : Seise in den Kaukasus, &c. (2 vols., Ber- lin, 1812-'14) ; Supplement au Dictionnaire chinois-latin du Pere Basile de Glemona (Paris, 1819) ; Asia Polyglotta ou classification des peuplesde VAsie, &c. (1823-'9) ; Tableaux Jiis- toriques de VAsie, &c. (1824-'6); Memoires relatifs a VAsie (3 vols., 1824-'8) ; Tableau historique, &c., du Caucase (1827) ; Vocabulaire latin, persan et careen (1828) ; Examen critique des tramux de M. Cnampollion jeune (1832). He left in MS. an extensive work, Nouteau Mithridate, ou Classification systematique de toutes les langues connues, which contains a grammatical sketch of most known languages, with a polyglot vocabulary of the five grand divisions of the world. An English transla- tion by F. Shoberl of his "Travels in the Cau- casus and Georgia, performed in 1807-'8," ap- peared in London in 1814. KLAUSENBIJRG (Hun. Kolosvdr), a town of Transylvania, capital of the county of the same name, and before 1848 of the whole country, on the Szamos, near its source, 225 m. E. by S. of Pesth, with which it is connected by rail- way; pop. in 1870, 26,382, chiefly Magyars. It has a fortified but partly decayed castle, and consists of two towns, the old and new, and six suburbs. It has Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and Protestant churches, a Roman Catholic gymnasium and seminary, a Protes- tant gymnasium, a Unitarian college, a Greek Catholic school, a Franciscan convent, two museums, a Hungarian theatre, and several be- nevolent institutions. Among the prominent buildings are several palaces belonging to the Transylvanian nobility. Klausenburg contains the only Unitarian college on the continent of Europe. In October, 1872, a university was opened here, the second in the lands of the Hungarian crown. It is an important centre of the trade between Transylvania and the neigh- boring counties of Hungary. It has also manu- factories of porcelain. It was a colony of the Romans, belonging to the province of Dacia, and ancient coins and relics are frequently found in the vicinity. Matthias Corvinus was born here, and it has often figured in Hunga- rian history. During the Hungarian revolution it was taken by Gen. Bern, Dec. 25, 1848. KLAUSTHAL. See CLAUSTHAL. KLEBER, Jean Baptiste, a French soldier, born in Strasburg in 1753 or 1754, assassinated in Cairo, Egypt, June 14, 1800. His father, a mason, died when he was a child, and he was educated by a country clergyman, his relative, who sent him to Paris to study architecture ; but at the end of two years he returned to his native city. Two Bavarian gentlemen, whom he had protected from insult at a caf6, took him to Germany and placed him in the military school at Munich. After serving a few years as sub-lieutenant in the Austrian army, he re- signed in 1783, returned to Alsace, and ob- tained the office of inspector of public build- ings in the town of Belfort. In 1792 he en- listed as a private, soon became adjutant, dis- tinguished himself during the siege of Mentz, and was raised to the rank of adjutant general. He was put under arrest on the surrender of that city, and taken to Paris, where he fully vindicated his conduct and that of the whole garrison. He was then made a brigadier gen- eral, sent to La Vendee with the first division of the "army of Mentz," fought heroically against the royalists, defeated them at Chollet, Oct. 17, 1793, and in concert with Marceau gained a victory at Savenay, Dec. 22. The in-