262 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VoL. II. 



edited by Mr. J. R. Aspelin, State Archaeologist, who took the initiative 

 in collecting the inscriptions, and has taken part, as their chief, in the 

 two expeditions, the writer has limited himself to speaking of the 

 interest which the inscriptions have so far excited. After a first copy of 

 the squeezes, a work in which Mr. Aspelin was able to take part 

 prior to setting out upon the third expedition, Professor O. Donner has 

 kindly undertaken to charge himself with the task of publishing these 

 inscriptions. 



" We cannot, at this point, fail to express our gratitude for the 

 encouragement given in Finland by private individuals and by various 

 societies in connection with the preparations for the Society's expeditions, 

 and for the benevolence with which its labours have been seconded by 

 the Russsian authorities, and notably by the Imperial Commission of 

 Archaeology. 



"The Government of Finland has taken upon itself to provide the 

 expenses of publication by a subsidy which it has had the kindness to 

 grant the Society." 



Exceedingly valuable as is Mr. Aspelin's historical introduction, the 

 most complete thing of its kind ever undertaken, its numerous details 

 can hardly be of interest to the general student. The first inscription 

 discovered was on an upright dressed stone, sixteen feet in height, two 

 feet wide and a foot thick, found on the borders of the Ouibat, a 

 tributary of the Abakan by D. G. Messerschmidt in iy2i-. Messer- 

 schmidt, a young naturalist of Dantzig, was then making a tour of 

 exploration in Siberia by order of Peter the Great. In the course of his 

 travels, he fell in with Captain Tabbert, better known by his later title of 

 nobility, Strahlenberg, and it is to the latter's work on the northern and 

 eastern part of Europe and Asia that the world is indebted for an 

 account of Messerschmidt's labours'^ This work, containing representa- 

 tions of a few other inscriptions, was published in 1730. Little more 

 was effected in the field of Siberian written monuments till the end of 

 the century, when the Empress Catherine II. ordered search to be made 

 for inscriptions, several of which were found and copied by Pallas in the 

 editions of his Neue Nordische Beitrage. From 181 8 onwards, George 

 Spassky, Superintendent of mines, betook himself seriously to the task 

 of collecting these documents, new copies of which he published in the 

 Siberian Messenger, and more lately and correctly in the Journal of the 

 Imperial Geographical Society at St. Petersburg. Klaproth, Castren, 

 and Prince Kostroff, continued the work of exploration, but zeal finally 

 died away; and, according to Mr. Aspelin, from i860 to 1870, nothing 

 at all was done to rescue the ancient records. Since 1870, Siberian 



