410 Br Bo ties Researches in Geography, Natural 



Those travellers who, like Quin, passed through them in 

 their way to Constantinople, have commonly given the most 

 vague and erroneous accounts, partly from having hurried 

 through the country, and partly from ignorance of the lan- 

 guages there current. Dr Boue, on the contrary, made the pro- 

 vinces the principal objects of his attention, and took care to 

 make himself duly acquainted with the languages of the people 

 he visited. In proof of his competency to the task, I cannot 

 do better than quote the testimony of Mr Berghaus, in his Al- 

 manack, who remarks :* '' We may, with justice and propriety, 

 term Boue's journey through European Turkey a journey of 

 discovery for geography as well as for geology. For although 

 our maps of Turkey are filled up with the most minutely de- 

 lineated chains of mountains, and exhibit a perfectly com- 

 plete hydrographical set of serpentine rivers and streams, yet 

 we know well that these apparently accurate representations 

 belong, for the most part, to the phantasmagorical class, and 

 can scarcely deceive the most credulous. 



" Most of the other countries of Europe have been surveyed 

 and described, but we grope in profound darkness when we 

 inquire into the natural external form and the geognostical 

 constitution of the Turkish possessions. European prejudices 

 and mercantile interests are undoubtedly the chief means that 

 have, to so great an extent, prevented travellers from visit- 

 ing a country which, now that many portions of it enjoy the 

 blessings of peace, and that the former fanaticism of its in- 

 habitants has begun to disappear, does not present the great 

 difficulties formerly encountered. The indefatigable Bout^, 

 who has examined the geological structure of nearly all the 

 countries of Europe, and who saw in Turkey an entirely un- 

 explored field for new observations, resolved to devote three 

 or four years to its investigation, and to associate with him- 

 self in his enterprise, naturalists who prosecuted other depart- 

 ments in natural history. 



" In the year 1836, during a portion of his journey, he en- 

 joyed the society of two French geologists, M. Montalembert 

 and Viquenel, of M. Friedrichtshal, a botanist, and of M. 



* From Jameson's Journal, vol. xxv. p. 174. 



