434 SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON'S ADDRESS. [May 25, 1867. 



pictorial representations from the pencil of their conntryman, Mr. 

 J. W. Atkinson. 



Under the patronage of the Emperor Nicholas, Mr. Atkinson 

 devoted seven years of his life to the exploration and delineation of 

 a region, of the greater part of v^rhich no European had hitherto 

 obtained the slightest knowledge. Let my associates inspect the 

 large original water-colour landscapes by this artist, represent- 

 ing the marvellously tinted and wild rocky countries of Mongolia, 

 the great Steppes of the Khirgis and Chinese Tartary, including 

 views of even the snowy Thian-Ghan, of which reduced engrav- 

 ings will soon be published, and they will readily admit, that if 

 such sterile, igneous, rocky masses, should not afford gold or silver, 

 they can prove of little value to any civilized country. 



Among the subjects treated by the Kussian geographers during 

 the year 1856, the mere enumeration of the following works, which 

 constitute a very few only of the communications to the Imperial 

 Society, will show the importance of its labours : — The Geography 

 of Vegetables, in four vols., by M. Beketoff ; the Fauna of the Mouth 

 of the river Amur,* by Schrenck ; a new Ethnographical Map of 

 Europe, by Koeppen; the Geographical and Ethnographical Ter- 

 minology of Central Asia, by Stchoukine ; Eeport of Lieutenant 

 Oussoltzoff of a Voyage to the Sources of the Eiver Vitima ; and an 

 account of those Volcanos of Central Asia, by Semenoff and Was- 

 iljin, to which allusion has just been made. 



Asia Minor. — In February of this year, I had the pleasure of com- 

 municating to the Society a memoir, which I had received from 

 General Jochmus, relative to a proposed communication in Asia 

 Minor between the Lake of Sabanja, the Eiver Sakaria, and the Gulf 

 of Nicomedia. The utility of this project had been fully recognized 

 in ancient times, and the question has been several times agitated, 

 at widely different periods, up to the close of the last century. The 

 distance from the Eiver Sakaria to the Lake of Sabanja, between 

 which there already exists a natural communication by the little 

 river of Sari-der6, is not much more than three miles and a half ; and 

 from the Lake to the Gulf of Nicomedia it is scarcely nine miles, 

 whilst no difficulty exists on the score of difference of level. There 

 can be no doubt that such a system of canals, of sufficient width 



* See p. 406 ante, for a notice of the hydrography of the river. 



