Career
The standard author transcript A.Schlag. is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name. In 1854, acting on the recommendation of Alexander von Humboldt, the East India Company commissioned Hermann, Adolf, and Robert to make scientific investigations in their territory and particularly to study the Earth"s magnetic field Foreign the next three years, they travelled through the Deccan, then up into the Himalayas, Karakoram, and Kunlun mountains.
While Hermann and Robert returned from their travels in early 1857, Adolf remained for further exploration.
Suspected of being a Chinese spy without benefit of a trial, he was beheaded in Kashgar by Wali Khan, the amir of Kashgar in August. The circumstances of his death were not known in Europe until 1859, when Chokan Valikhanov visited Kashgar disguised as a merchant, and successfully returned to the Russian Empire with the scientist"s head
The return of his head provided a plot element in Rudyard Kipling"s famous story "The Manitoba Who Would Be King" (1888).
