KENNAN, George, American traveler, au thor and lecturer: b. Norwalk, Ohio, 16 Feb. 1845. He received a secondary education, be came a telegraph operator, in 1865 went to northeastern Siberia as an explorer and tele graph engineer, and in 1866-68 superintended the construction of the middle division of the Russo-American telegraph line. In 1870-71 he explored the mountain region of eastern Cau casus and Daghestan, upon his return to Amer ica was active as lecturer and journalist, and in 1877-85 was night manager of the Associated Press at Washington, D. C. In 1885-86, with G. A. Frost, an artist, he accomplished a jour ney of 15,000 miles through Russia and Siberia investigation nvestigation of the Russian exile system. He visited all the mines and prisons between the Ural Mountains and the headwaters of the Amur, and published an account of his observa tions in 'Siberia and the Exile System' (1891), first printed in the Century Magazine (1889 90). From 1886 he lectured in Great Britain and the United States on his Siberian experi ences. In 1898, during the Spanish-American war, he visited Cuba with the Red Cross Society and as special commissioner of the Outlook of New York, to which he contributed valuable articles.
In 1901 he went to Russia to visit Count Tolstoy and make a further study of Russian conditions. He was arrested in Saint Peters
burg, by order of the Minister of the Interior, and sent out of the empire under guard as a apolitically untrustworthy" person. In 1902 in company with American scientists he explored Mount Pelee, Martinique, and the scene of the Saint Pierre disaster. In 1904, upon the out break of the Russo-Japanese war, he went to the Far East as correspondent of the Outlook; reported the siege of Port Arthur, which he witnessed from the Japanese side; and spent nearly two years in travel through Japan, China, Manchuria and Korea. In 1 he inves tigated for McClure's Magazine municipal cor ruption in San Francisco. In 1908 he went to England to translate from the original Russian manuscript General Kuropatkin's 'History of the Japanese War.' In addition to the two volumes on the Siberian exile system noted above he is the author of 'Campaigning in Cuba' (1899); 'The Tragedy of Pelee' (1902) ; 'Folk Tales of Napoleon' (1902) ; 'Tent Life in Siberia' (revised and enlarged edition 1910); 'A Russian Comedy of Errors' (1915) and 'The Chicago and Alton Case' (1915). Since 1912 he has been on the staff of the Outlook.