AND NOMENCLATORS, XXXV11 



Central Russia, and wintered at Sinbirsk on the Volga ; 

 next spring he moved to Orenburg, thence down the 

 River Oural to the Caspian Sea; in 1770 he followed the 

 course of the Oural Mountains, northwards, to Tobolsk 

 the capital of Siberia, and wintered at Tchiliabinsk ; in 

 the spring of 1771 he visited the mines of Kolivan, in the 

 Altai Mountains, and wintered at Krasnoyarsk on the 

 River Enisei ; next year he traversed Lake Baikal, and 

 went as far as the borders of the Chinese Empire : re- 

 turning thence, he a second time wintered at Krasnoi- 

 arsk; in 1773 descended again to the Caspian, visited 

 Astrakhan and Bokhara, and approached Caucasia ; after 

 wintering between the Volga and the Don, he finally re- 

 turned to St. Petersburg in July 1774. Two years later, 

 his "Travels" appeared, a work which has been de- 

 scribed as an inexhaustible mine for .the naturalist and 

 the statesman. This was followed by " Spicilegia Zoo- 

 logica" (1780), and " Icones Insectorum, prsesertim 

 Rossise Sibiriseque peculiarium " (Erlangen, 1 78 1 ) . Cuvier, 

 in his Eloge, says " Pallas a vraiment change la face de la 

 theorie de la terre. Une consideration attentive des deux 

 grandes chaines de montagnes de Siberie lui fit apercevoir 

 cette regie generale, qui s'est ensuite verifiee partout, de 

 la succession des trois ordres primitifs de montagnes, les 

 granitiques au milieu, les schisteuses a leurs cotes, et les 

 calcaires en dehors. On peut dire que ce grand fait, 

 nettement exprime en 1777, dans un Memoire lu 

 FAcademie, a donne naissance a toute la nouvelle geo- 

 logic : les Saussure, les Deluc, les Werner sont partis de 

 la pour arriver a la veritable connaissance de la structure 

 de la terre, si difierente des idees fantastiques des ecri- 

 vains precedents." Honourably occupied at St. Peters- 

 burg, loaded with titles, and applauded by the whole of 

 Europe, Pallas's position might seem an enviable one; 

 but his wanderings had unfitted him for the life of a 

 capital, and rendered it irksome to him. Accordingly 

 he accompanied the expedition to the Crimea, where, 

 charmed with the climate, he settled in 1795 ; for fifteen 

 years he lived in the neighbourhood of Simpheropol, 

 exercising hospitality to the few who then visited his 

 secluded home, engaged upon his " Zoographia Rosso- 

 Asiatica," and continuing his other great works. Tired 

 at length of so monotonous a life, he quitted Russia, and, 

 after an absence of forty-two years, returned to his native 

 town to end his days : his death occurred in 1811. 

 PALMER, Dr. Shirley, of Birmingham : in The Zoologist. 



