50 HISTORY OF GEOLOGY AND PALEONTOLOGY. 



gifted family. His father was professor of surgery, his mother 

 belonged to the French colony in Berlin. His inborn talent 

 for languages developed early ; while still at school, he 

 mastered French, English, and Latin in addition to his native 

 tongue. He studied medicine and natural science at Berlin, 

 Halle, Gottingen, and Leyden, and after a visit to England, 

 settled at the Hague in 1763, to devote himself exclusively to 

 science. The turning-point in his career was an invitation to 

 fill the chair of Natural History in the Imperial Academy of 

 St. Petersburg, and the further request that he should 

 undertake the leadership of an expedition to Siberia, planned 

 by Empress Catherine II. 



Pallas spent six years of great privation (1768-74) in 

 Eastern Russia and Siberia, exploring the plains, rivers, and 

 lakes, with a view both to their geography and to their faunas 

 and floras, and he also examined geographically the Ural and 

 Altai mountains. 



Partly during the expedition and partly afterwards, Pallas 

 published a three-volume work containing an account of his 

 travels and observations. Few explorers have contributed 

 such a vast wealth of geographical, geological, botanical, 

 zoological, and ethnographical observations as Pallas has done 

 in this justly famous work. 



In 1793 Pallas commenced a journey of two years' duration 

 in Southern Russia and the Crimea. He liked the province 

 of Taurida so well that he afterwards took up residence there 

 upon an estate presented to him by Empress Catherine. He 

 continued his scientific researches for several years, until, 

 failing in health and saddened by the loss of his wife, he 

 returned to his native city in 1810, and died in Berlin 

 in 1811. 



Pallas occupied a high position in the scientific world. 

 He achieved his successes mainly in zoological and geograph- 

 ical research, but he also contributed much to the progress of 

 geology. His geological views are contained in a treatise 

 published by the St. Petersburg Academy, Consideration of 

 the Structure of Mountain- Chains (1777), and in the Physical 

 and Topographical Sketches of Taurida (1794), 



John Michell had in 1760 published in the Philosophical 

 Transactions a series of observations on earthquakes and 

 mountain-structure. This paper was accompanied by an ideal 

 section through a mountain-system, showing a central core 



