GMELIN, Samuel Theophilus, was born at Tübingen on the 23d of June 1745. After having taken the degree of doctor in medicine at the age of nineteen, he went to finish his studies at Leyden, where a conformity of tastes for natural history united him with Pallas. Finding himself involved in difficulties, he entertained the idea of embarking as surgeon on board of a vessel bound for the East Indies; but in the mean time, whilst waiting for assistance from his family, he established himself in the little town of Brill. The vicinity of the sea, and some excursions which he made by water in the neighbourhood, afforded him an opportunity of collecting many marine plants, and examining with attention the sea-weeds, and suggested to him the idea of writing their history. He next visited Belgium, and then proceeded to Paris, where he was well received by Adanson, who inspired him with something of his own aversion to the system of Linnæus. After a short stay in his native country, he was, in 1766, called to St Petersburg,
there to profess botany. Catherine II., faithful to the plan executed by several of her predecessors, of causing learned men to travel in different parts of the Russian empire, ordered a new expedition of the same description to be undertaken. Gmelin obtained permission to join this expedition; and after having had the honour of being presented to the empress, he set out in the month of June 1768, visited the Valdai Mountains, passed the winter at Woronetz, and descended the Don as far as Tscherkask. Here the frightful picture which was drawn of the journey by the steppes, and along the frontier to the mouth of the Terek in the Caspian Sea, induced him to renounce his first project; and he returned by the ordinary route, as far as Zaritzin, in order to proceed to Astrakan by the Volga. In the years 1770 and 1771 he visited different harbours of the Caspian, and examined with peculiar attention those parts of the Persian provinces bordering upon that sea, of which he has given a circumstantial account in his travels. Actuated by a zeal for extending his observations, he attempted to pass through the western provinces of Persia, which are in a state of perpetual disturbance, and infested by numerous banditti. In this expedition he, in April 1772, quitted Enzelli, a small trading place in Ghilan, upon the southern shore of the Caspian; but, on account of many difficulties and dangers, did not, until the 2d of December 1773, reach Sallian, a town situated at the mouth of the river Koor. He thence proceeded to Baku and Kuba, in the province of Shirvan, where he met with a friendly reception from Ali Feth Khan, the sovereign of that district. But after he had been joined by twenty Uralian Cossacks, and when he was only four days journey from the Russian fortress of Kislar, on the Terek, he and his companions were, on the 5th of February 1774, arrested by order of Usmeci Khan, a petty Tartar prince, through whose territories he was obliged to pass. Usmeci urged as a pretence for this arrest, that thirty years before several families had escaped from his dominions, and had found an asylum in the Russian territories; adding, that Gmelin should not be released until these families were restored. The professor was removed from prison to prison; and at length, wearied out with continued persecutions, he expired, on the 27th of June, at Achmet-Kent, a village of the Caucasus. His death was occasioned partly by vexation for the loss of several papers and collections, and partly by disorders contracted from the fatigues of his long journey. Some of his papers had been sent to Kislar during his imprisonment, and the others were not without great difficulty rescued from the hands of the barbarian who had detained him in captivity. The arrangement of these papers, which form the fourth volume of his travels, was at first consigned to the care of Guldenstaedt, but upon his death was transferred to the learned Pallas. The works of Gmelin are, 1. Historia Fucorum iconibus illustrata, St Petersburg, 1768, in 4to; 2. Voyages dans différentes parties de l'Empire de Russie, pour faire des Recherches relatives à l'Histoire Naturelle, St Petersburg, 1770, 1774, 1784, in four vols. 4to; 3. Several Memoirs in the Collections of the Society of Haerlem, and of the Academy of St Petersburg. Gmelin was also editor of volumes iii. and iv. of the Horæ Sibirica of his uncle.