356 Botanical Intelligence. 



of the Botanic Garden of Moscow, to the mountains of Orenbourg, and of 

 Tartary : but, of still more consequence was the embassy which she dis- 

 patched to Kamtschatka, and to the coasts of America, under the command 

 of the famous navigator, Behring, a Dane, who was accompanied by the 

 naturalists, J. G. Gmelin * and Stephen Kraschenninnikow. Five years 

 after, Stephen and W. Steller of Weinhaim, in Franconia, visited the Bay 

 of Awatcha, and the north-west coasts of America, whence they brought 

 very interesting collections of plants. Gmelin again, in company with G. 

 F. Muller and Di l'lsle de la Croyere, accomplished their travels into Si- 

 beria, in the years 1734 and 1743. 



Under the reign of the Empress Catherine, new expeditions were under- 

 taken into the north of Asia, and throughout all Russia, by Pallas, Falke, 

 Grendelstedt, Georgi, Lepechin, and Hablizl. The Floras of Siberia, and 

 of the Altaic mountains, were enriched by the researches of a Swede, Eric 

 Laxmann ; that of Livonia, by Grindell, Germann, and Drumpelmann ; 

 that of Petersburgh, by Sobolewsky, Lebosehiitz, and Trinius, (well known 

 by his labours among the grasses,) that of Moscow, by Stephen, Martins, 

 Adams, Fischer, and Goldbach. The Caucasus was visited many times 

 by Marshal Von Bieberstein, whence originated the Flora taurico-caucas- 

 ica. Other learned botanists have published their discoveries in the Me- 

 moirs of the Society of Natural History ; these are Londes, de Victingshoff, 

 Haas, Wilhelms, Parrott, Engelhard t, &c. Botanic Gardens have been es- 

 tablished, and kept up with greater or less care at Abo, in Finland, at 

 Casan, Charkow, Cremenery in Volhynia, at Dorpat, Moscow, Wilna, 

 Warsaw, St Petersburgh, &c. Among those of the last mentioned city, 

 that of Paulowsky stands pre-eminent, as containing the rarest plants 

 brought from very distant countries, by the recent Russian navigators. 

 To these remarks, which were published in 1823, we are enabled, through 

 the kindness of our excellent friend Dr Fischer, and of Mr Goldie, to add 

 some notices respecting the truly princely establishment of the new Im- 

 perial Botanic Garden of St Petersburgh, founded in 1824. 



The celebrated Botanic Garden of Prince Razomoffsky, at Moscow, which 

 was under the direction of Dr Fischer, at the death of that nobleman ex- 

 cited no interest in the mind of his son, and Dr Fischer then used his ut- 

 most exertion to have a Botanic Garden worthy of the Russian empire, 

 established at its capital, St Petersburgh. This, happily, through the in- 

 tervention and influence of the Empress mother, a great lover of Botany, 

 and who herself possesses a very fine collection of plants, was accomplish- 

 ed. 



Upon one of the small islands formed by the branches of the Neva, to 

 the north of the town, and named, from the circumstance that we are a- 

 bout to mention, Aptekerski stroff, (Apothecary's Island,) was founded 

 by Peter the Great, a small garden for the cultivation principally of such 

 plants as were useful in medicine, and which was given to the Company 

 of Apothecaries. Here Peter built, with his own royal hands, a hut which 



• Author of the excellent Flora Sibirka, and of Travels through Siberia. 



