148 Bibliography. 



that no ship be sent to sea without a barometer, and a good supply of 

 copies of u The Sailor's Horn Book of Storms." 



2. Memoir, Geographical, Political and Commercial, on the Pres- 

 ent State, Productive Resources and Capabilities of Siberia, Manchu- 

 ria, and the Asiatic Islands of the Northern Pacific Ocean ; and on 

 the importance of opening Commercial Intercourse with those Countries, 

 Sfc. Addressed to his Excellency, James K. Polk, President of the 

 United States; by Aaron H. Palmer, Counsellor of the Supreme 

 Court of the United States, &c. March 8, 1848. Referred to the Com- 

 mittee on the Library and ordered to be printed. 106 pp. 8vo. — The 

 author of this Memoir has embodied in a few condensed pages, a large 

 amount of information on the countries of which he treats, and urges 

 with arguments meriting attention, the importance of opening commer- 

 cial intercourse with regions yet unvisited, and revising the arrange- 

 ments existing with other distant nations. He suggests the importance 

 of an early revision of our commercial convention with Russia of the 

 ^yth April, 1824, for the admission of our vessels into the ports of 

 Siberia, Kamschatka, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands, and the North Pa- 

 cific, as well as the Russian settlements of Northwestern America. 

 He observes that it is " equally important that our government should 

 insist on the right of navigating the great Manchurian river Amur and 

 its affluents, and of trading with the colonial dependencies of China, 

 upon the same footing as the Russians ; and that we claim the further 

 privilege of commercial intercourse at Tinghae, in the Chusan Archi- 

 pelago. The favorable position of that port, with its safe anchorages, 

 accessible to the largest ships at all seasons, lying near the embouchure 

 of the great Yangtsekang river, and within two days' sail of Japan an 

 Corea, give it superior advantages over every other port in China for 

 trade, and as a depot and halting station for the American trans-Pacific 

 line of steamers, which it is contemplated to establish between Panama 



and China, in connexion with the line now in progress from Panama to 

 Oregon." 



The Memoir is an extract, as Mr. Palmer states, from a work entitled 

 "The Unknown Countries of the East," which he proposes to publish. 

 Ihe extensive geographical learning of its author, and his wide reach 

 of mind, must render the work one of high value both commercially 

 and geographically. From the Prospectus, we learn that it embraces 

 descriptions of the features and resources of Ascension Island, St. 

 Helena, Colony of the Cape of Good Hope— East Coast of Africa 

 Zanguebar— Comoro Islands— Island of Madagascar— Mauritius— Bour- 

 bon— Abyssinia— Red Sea— Ports on the African Coast— Arabia— Per- 

 sia— Belouclustan, Sinde, Punjaub, Afghanistan— Hindostan— Bunnan 

 I rovinces— various islands of the Indian Archipelago, with an account j 



of the steam communication between England, Singapore and Austra- 

 lia—North and Northeast coasts of Australia — Loochoo, and Bonin 

 islands, Japan, Kuriles, Yeso, Saghalien and other islands east of Asia 

 Manchuria and other Colonial Dependencies of China— Siberia, and the 

 Russian Trade with China at Kiatka. An appendix includes memoirs 

 on the steam navigation of the Pacific— on a ship canal from the At- 

 lantic to the Pacific— a proposed mission to the East, and Consular plan 

 for a portion of the countries described— with a catalogue of the authors 

 consulted in preparing the work. 



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