Heinrich Balduin Möllhausen (27 January 1825—28 May 1905) was a German writer, traveler and artist who visited the United States and participated in three separate expeditions exploring the American frontier.

[2] For the next two years he roamed the frontier in Illinois and Missouri, hunting and occasionally finding work as a sign painter or court clerk.

[3] In 1851 Möllhausen met Duke Paul Wilhelm of Württemberg, a fellow German who was setting out on a scientific expedition to the Rocky Mountains.

[3] Möllhausen stayed with the duke at his home in New Orleans for a few months and then accepted an offer from the Prussian consul in Saint Louis to accompany a shipment of zoo animals to Berlin.

In Washington D.C. he was hired as a topographer and draftsman for an expedition through the western United States to survey a possible route for a proposed transcontinental railway.

[2][3] In January 1855 King Frederick William IV provided Möllhausen with a lifetime appointment as custodian of the royal libraries in and around Potsdam, a position that was created at the request of Humboldt.

[3] In 1857 Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives invited Möllhausen to join his expedition to test the navigability of the Colorado River and investigate the Grand Canyon.

From there they traveled up the Colorado some 530 miles, first in a small steamer built specifically for the trip; and when the river became too shallow, they continued on foot to the Grand Canyon.

In 1861 he published an illustrated diary of his last journey, Reisen in die Felsengebirge Nord-Amerikas bis zum Hoch-Plateau von Neu-Mexico ("Traveling in the Rocky Mountains of North America up to the High Plateau of New Mexico").

Der Meerkönig ("The Sea-King", 1867) introduced his more typical formula, dividing each plot evenly between the New World and the Old, with Germany, Scotland, and Norway providing the backdrop for the European part of the action.