Expedition for making Difcoveries. 145 
of the Academy of Sciences at Peterfburgh. In the mean 
time, the Academical Mufeum at this place *, through the 
liberality of its worthy benefactor Baron von Afch, coun- 
fellor of ftate, has received a prefent highly interefting to 
natural hiftory and geography, confifting of works of art and 
natural curiofities from thefe remote regions of the northern 
part of Afia, as well as of the north-weft coaft of America 
and the chain of iflands lying between the two continents. 
The f{pecimens of art of thefe polar inhabitants, and above 
all the needle-work of the women, (who, howeyer, for the 
moft part are troglodytes, and in their fubterranean dwellings 
(jurten), mutt confequently ftrain their eyes by working at 
lamps filled with train oil,) exceed in elegance every thing 
T ever faw of fuch kind of manufacture, not only among fa-. 
vages, but even among the civilifed Europeans, _ As a proof 
of this affertion, I fhall here remark, that they ftood exa- 
mination by a magnifying glafs, under which the finelt 
embroidery of Europe loft much by being compared with 
them. 
The affertion that, except food and drink, there is no ob- 
ject which engages more the attention of mankind than that 
of ornament, and that a turn for coquettery is one of the 
moft general-as well as moft beneficent principles in human 
nature—an affertion ftrengthened by this ftriking obfervation, 
that though there are numerous tribes on the earth who go 
perfectly naked, even without fo much as the covering: of a 
fig-leaf, there are none, as far as we yet know from the in- 
‘formation of travellers, who, notwithftanding their nudity, 
‘do not ornament themfelves in fome manner or other, I have 
found fully confirmed by various articles, the fruits of this 
‘voyage of difcovery, which form part of the prefent tranf. 
‘mitted to our mufeum by Baron von Afch. 
‘The variety and fingularity of the appendages of the toi- 
‘lette of thefe polar inhabitants, condemned as it were to the 
* Gottingen. 
On; Hy: L.. : coldeft 
