ADELBERT VON, a German naturalist and poet, born in Lorraine in 1781, of a noble family, that was obliged to emigrate to Berlin in the commencement of the first French revolution. There young Chamisso was received as one of the pages to the queen, and in 1798 entered the Prussian army, in which he served until after the peace of Tilsit. He then took up his residence in France, where he spent ten years in the assiduous cultivation of natural history. On his return to Germany he published the novel of Peter Schlemil, the man who loses his own shadow, a production of great power and originality. In 1814 he was offered the situation of naturalist to an expedition round the world, undertaken at the expense of Count Numjanzow, chancellor of the Russian empire. The expedition sailed in 1815 under Captain Kotzebue; and after a successful voyage, returned in 1818. Chamisso, in 1821, gave an account of this voyage in a quarto volume entitled Observations and Discoveries made during a Voyage round the World—a work that is replete with interesting information, and which established his reputation as a naturalist. Soon after his return he was appointed inspector of the botanic garden at Berlin; and in 1827 he published his Survey of the Plants of the North of Germany, profitable, useful, or poisonous, together with a View of the Vegetable Kingdom, and of Plants in general. During the last ten years of his life, he gave proofs of the versatility of his genius in the publication of several tales and poems, which entitle the name of Chamisso to a high place in this field of German literature. He died at Berlin August 12, 1838. (T.S.T.)