572 Geological Society. Annive^'sary Address, 1842. 



to be, as the first wlio applied the methods of modern practical geo- 

 logy to that empire, by the publication of his general map in the year 

 1S22. Nevertheless it is too certain, as M. de Verneuil and myself 

 informed you last year, that when we first visited St. Petersburgh in 

 1 840, this map, though published in our Transactions, was, as far as we 

 could ascertain, unknown to the men of science in that country. In 

 the first memoir on Russia, we specially directed your attention to the 

 merits of Strangways, and we shall have ample opportunities here- 

 after of reverting to tiiem. What I have now to observe in reference 

 to the map of JM. A. Erman is, that in his account of it, the special 

 researches and the new points which my fi'iend M. de Vei'neuil and 

 myself established, are merged with what 1 must consider the copies 

 of our views. The source whence the chief materials were ob- 

 tained, is sufficiently proved indeed by the words " Silnrische und 

 Devonisciie schichten " engraved upon the map, particularly when 

 coupled with the fact, that M. de Verneuil, Count Keyserling, and 

 myself are the only geologists who traced the older groups to the 

 White Sea, aided materially, as we have previously acknowledged, in 

 a part of that region, by the Baron A. de Meyendorf, and for a short 

 time by Professor Blasius. The original observations which we made 

 were inserted by myself on a map which was shown at Moscow and 

 St. Petersburgh in August, and to tlie British Association at Glasgow, 

 in September 1840. On this map the range of the great bands of 

 Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous rocks from St. Petersburgh 

 and Moscow to the White Sea, with a vast basin of red deposits in 

 the governments of Vologda and the Middle Volga, were laid down, 

 I assert, for the first time, and thus established the essentially di- 

 stinguishing features of subdivision of the North of Russia. 



After the application of this basis, Colonel Helmersen, to whom I 

 have alluded, put together in the ensuing winter a small general map 

 of Russia in Europe, in which he inserted the result of the labours 

 of M. de Verneuil, the Baron A. de Meyendorf, Count Keyserling, 

 Professor Blasius, and myself, acknowledging our services as well 

 as those of all previous observers. The map of M. Erman which 

 followed, was prepared by the Baron A. de Meyendorf and his 

 companions, who extended the knowledge which they acquired with 

 M. de Verneuil and myself to some of the central and southern 

 parts of Russia, and thus marked a new step in the development of 

 the structure of the empire. Since that time, the extended geolo- 

 gical researches of the expedition in which my friends M. de Ver- 

 neuil and Count Keyserling were associated with me, aided by 

 Lieut. Koksharof, and an independent survey of Colonel Helmer- 

 sen, have thrown a new light over the structure of various parts of 

 the central, eastern, and southern regions, and have rendered ne- 

 cessary considerable changes in all previous maps. As a mere pre- 

 lude, therefore, to what may hereafter appear, I have, with the aid 

 of my associates, coloured a small general sketch-map of the em- 

 pire, including the Ural chain, which as it will shortly appear before 

 you in a published form, I only mention in this place to assure you 

 that it differs very essentially from all previous maps. 



