Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 05.djvu/423

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KLAirSTHA' 355 KLONDIKE KLAUSTHAL, the chief mining town of the Northern Harz Mountains, Ger- many; on a bleak plateau (1,985 feet), 25 miles N. E. of Gottingen. The ore miles are silver, lead, copper, and zinc. There is a good mining academy, with library, museum, and laboratory. Zell- erfeld, di'ided from Klausthal by a brook, is also a mining center. The mines are the property of the Prussian government. Pop. 8,000. The men are almost exclusively employed in the mines and smelting works. KLifiBER, JEAN BAPTISTE, a French general; born in Strassburg in 1754. He was originally an architect, but chose the military profession, and en- JEAN BAPTISTE KLEBER tered the Austrian service, (1776 to 1783). When the French revolutionary war broke out, he entered as a grenadier into a volunteer regiment, and rose rap- idly into command. He displayed great skill and bravery at the siege of Mentz, after which he was employed in La Ven- dee; but the sanguinary scenes there so disgusted him, that he obtained his re- call, and was engaged in the army of the North, defeated the Austrians, took Mons, and drove the enemy from Lou- vain. He also captured Maestricht, and contributed to the splendid successes of 1795 and 1796 on the Rhine. The Direc- tory gave him command of the army of the Sambre and Meuse, which he resigned to Hoche, and retired. Napoleon I., however, who valued his talents, pre- vailed upon him to join the expedition to Egypt. He was wounded at the battle of Alexandria, but he marched into Syria, where he commanded the corps of ob- servation during the siege of Acre, and defeated the Turks in several actions. When Napoleon left Egypt, he appointed Kleber commander-in-chief of the army. He captured the City of Cairo, and made an alliance with Murad Bey. He was assassinated by an Arab, June 14, 1800. KLEENBOC, a pigmy antelope found at the Cape of Good Hope, It is about a foot high at the shoulder, with small erect black horns, somewhat approaching at the tips. KLEIST, HEINRICH VON, a Ger- man dramatist; born in Frankfort-on- the-Oder, Oct. 18, 1777. At first he fol- lowed the family profession and entered the army; but left it in 1799 for litera- ture. His best plays, such as "The Prince of Homburg" and "The Broken Pitcher" possess sufficient vigor and fidelity to life to make them popular even at the present day. The best of his tales is "Michael Kohlhaas," a story of Brandenburg in the Middle Ages. He shot himself, after first shooting a wo- man whom he loved, and who like him was weary of life, on the bank of Lake Wan near Potsdam, Nov. 21, 1811. His works did not gain recognition till after his death. K L E P H T S (klefts) , properly "robbers," the name formerly given to those Greeks who kept themselves free from the Turkish yoke in the mountains, and carried on a pepetual war against the oppressors of their country. KLEPTOMANIA, a supposed species of insanity manifesting itself in a desire to pilfer. KLIPSPRINGER, a species of ante- lope, about equal in size to the chamois, and resembling it in habits, found in the highest mountainous districts of South Africa. It is of a yellowish-gray color, and the hair is long, and stands out from the skin so as to make a rough fur. The flesh of the klipspringer is particularly esteemed; the hair is also valued for stuffing saddles. KLONDIKE, THE, a river which en- ters the Yukon, the principal river of the Northwest Territory, Canada, 45 miles below the mouth of Sixty Mile, and 15 miles above old Fort Reliance. The word is now applied to the region sur- rounding the Klondike river and its trib- utaries. As early as 1862 gold was discovered in Alaska, but no especial notice was taken of it; 13 years later gold was found at the head of the Stikine river, in the S. E. part, about 300 miles N. of Fort Wrangel, and a rush was made to the fields. Fort Wrangel became a prosper-