41 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 
by that extraordinary universal and indefatigable man, Peter 
the Great; but unluckily the absence of the person having the 
key of it, prevented my seeing it. The most active, intelligent, 
zealously working botanist here is, without doubt, Mr. Richter, 
who has determined and prepared for distribution Karelin’s 
plants: a number of parcels of these have been already 
sent to various botanists, and others are ready to be given 
in exchange. 
Mr. Karelin himself is very highly spoken of by those who 
know him here and by a friend of his I met at Nijni, but I 
have unfortunately not been able to find him. He has a 
great deal of business on hand, has changed his residence, 
and Moscow is so large for its population (seven miles 
long, and four to five miles from barrier to barrier), and the 
pavement so bad, that it is a hopeless task to seek out those 
whose exact address is unknown ; his companion, Mr. Kiriloff, 
who met with a melancholy death from illness in a small 
village, hundreds of miles from any one who knew anything 
of him, is much regretted. 
The Professor of Botany, and Director of the Bota- _ 
nical Garden, is Mr. Alexander Fischer, son of Mr. Fischer _ 
the geologist and zoologist. I have had great pleasure 
in again seeing the father, to whom I was introduced at 
Hamburgh, in 1830. He is now growing old and rather 
feeble, but very well, and as zealous as ever about the 
petrifactions of the Government of Moscow and Russia 
generally. Mr. Alexander Fischer is said to be a man of — 
great scientific attainments, though not much of a working - 
botanist. A microscope of his invention, for which a medal - 
was awarded to him at Paris, and of which an account 
is published in the Bulletin of the Société des Naturalistes - 
de Moscow, is spoken of as a very important improvement - 
in principle applicable with great advantage to telescopes, ~ 
but I am not nes acquainted with the subject to 
judge of it. © 
In a letter from Toana he gives me the following 
names for some of Fortune's Chinese plants. 
