May 25, 1857.] RUSSIA. 431 



of able men were chosen, to form its scientific staff, the Presi- 

 dent of the Imperial Geographical Society having applied to me, 

 and explained its object, I had real gratification in writing letters of 

 introduction to all the authorities, with whom I was acquainted, at 

 the places which this frigate might visit. Admirably organised, the 

 expedition has enjoyed the great advantage of having had its officers 

 furnished (as M. Haidinger informs me) with the minutest instruc- 

 tions of the venerable Humboldt, whether upon the magnetic 

 equator, the magnetic curves in the different oceans, the lines of no 

 deviation and equal intensity, or on cold and warm currents, parti- 

 cularly those along the Peruvian coast, and on the tropical East and 

 West counter-currents. The great traveller has also enjoined the 

 cutting of marks on the rocks, to register the actual mean level of 

 the sea, the same practice which he had formerly recommended 

 for adoption on the shores of the Caspian ; and he has especially 

 urged the collection of specimens from the active volcanos of South 

 America, which he has enumerated seriatim, with a view to a correct 

 classification of such igneous products, which he believes will be 

 found to exhibit an arrangement in separate linear masses. 



If I may judge of Dr. Scherzer and the other gentlemen who ac- 

 company him by the encouraging example of his associate Dr. Ploch- 

 stetter, the geologist, who visited this country to obtain from General 

 Sabine information and instruction in making magnetical observ- 

 ations, I can have no hesitation in saying that this first effort of 

 Austria to circumnavigate the globe will produce a harvest worthy 

 of that ancient empire, and will reflect the highest credit on the 

 new-born Geographical Society of Yienna. 



Russia. — With the return of peace, which has happily taken place 

 since our last Anniversary, it is most gratifying to one who has 

 been so long connected with the science of Russia as myself, and 

 who has been so heartily welcomed in that Empire by all persons, 

 from the Emperor to the peasant, to be enabled to recur to the 

 geographical labours of those old allies of our country, to whom I 

 am naturally much attached. 



Whilst the late war impeded all scientific communication with 

 the countries of the West, Eussia was steadily advancing re- 

 searches of the highest importance to physical geography in her 

 distant and slightly known territories, and particularly on the north 

 and east. The great expedition to the northern part of the Ural 

 Mountains, under the conduct of Colonel Ploffmann, had indeed 

 obtained, before the war, the active support of the Imperial Geo- 



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