OLEARIUS, Adam, a German traveller whose true name was Oelschläger, was born at Aschersleben near Magdeburg in 1600, and died at Gottorp 22d February 1671. After studying at Leipsic he became librarian and court mathematician to Duke Frederick III. of Holstein-Gottorp, and in 1633 he was appointed secretary to the ambassadors Philip Crusius and Otto Briiggemann or Brugman sent by the duke to Muscovy and Persia in the hope of making arrangements by which his newly-founded city of Frederikstad should become the terminus of an overland silk-trade. It is by his admirable narrative of this legation {Beschreibung der moskowitischen und persischen Reise, Schleswig, 1647, and afterwards in several enlarged editions) that Olearius is best known, though he also published a history of Holstein, and a translation of the Gulistan {Persianisches Rosenthal, Schleswig, 1654), to which was appended a translation of the fables of Lokman. A French version of the Beschreibung was published by Wicquefort (1679), and an English version (1662, 2d ed. 1669) by John Davies of Kidwelly.

The embassy to which Olearius was attached made two different journeys. The first (22d October 1633 to 6th April 1635) was by Hamburg, Lübeck, Riga, Dorpat (five months’ stay), Revel, Narva, Ladoga, and Novgorod to Moscow, and back again by a somewhat different route. The second (22d October 1635 to 1st August 1639) was by a similar route to Moscow, thence to the Volga, down the river to Astrakhan, across the Caspian to Nizovaya,and so on,byShemakha, Ardebil, Sultanieh, Kaswin, &c., to Ispahan, and then back again by Resht and Lenkoran to Astrakhan, Kazan, Moscow, &c. Paul Fleming the poet and Mandelslo, whose travels to the East Indies are usually published with those of Olearius, accompanied the embassy.