Shanklin Chine, Isle of Wight. 5 



the highest rank. In 1828 he presided at the meeting- of the learned 

 men of Europe, which then assembled at Berlin, and he performed 

 the office to the advantage of the sciences. His restless mind induced 

 him in the following 1 year to undertake another long travel through 

 Siberia as far as the boundary of the Chinese empire. He went 

 from Petersburg to Nishnei-Novogorod, and Kasan, and thence over 

 Perm to the Uralian Mountains, and Yecaterinenburg. From this 

 place he advanced to Tobolsk, and through the Steppe of Baraba to 

 Bernoul, whence he visited the mines on the western extremity of 

 the Altai Mountains, and the adjacent Chinese boundary. He re- 

 turned through the Steppe of Ischim to the southern ranges of the 

 Ural, and visiting the great salt-lake of Elton, he reached Astrakhan 

 and the Caspian Sea. His route then lay through the wide steppes 

 traversed by the Volga or Don to the ancient metropolis of Russia, 

 and thence to Petersburg, after an absence of ten months. Up to this 

 time nothing has been published respecting the observations he 

 made in this journey, except his " Fragments Asiatiques," a work 

 which contains little of what he himself observed, but some genen " 

 and rather bold views on the physical and geological geograph 

 of Asia. It is to be hoped that his personal observations will er 

 long be published, furnishing, as may well be expected, a large ma 

 of the most valuable information respecting countries whose geogr 

 phy requires elucidation more than any on the surface of our globe 



SHANKLIN CHINE, ISLE OF WIGHT. 



[Lines written by MR. WARREN,* of the Inner Temple, during a residence at 

 the Chine Cottage, in 1836.] 



THOU lovely fissure ! By what freak of Nature 

 Were Shanklin's lofty cliffs asunder riven, 

 And when ? But Nature, if she dealt the blow 

 So cruelly on the earth, looked after on 

 With pity ; and the wound incurable 

 Sorrowing she hid beneath an emerald robe 

 Of beauteous ever-greens and gem-like flowers. 

 Though thus with verdure clad, her ancient grief 

 Shanklin forgetteth not, but sadly weeps ! 

 Incessantly her tears, a crystal shower, 

 Fall trickling down the Chine ; and they whose souls 

 Know not of Shanklin's grief, come oft to view 

 Her mimic waterfall! But not so I 

 Who silent stand amidst her vernal gloom, 

 Mingling my tears with hers. 



* Author of " Passages from the Diary of t ." late Physician." 



