178 Foreign Literature and Science, 



4th. That of the Academy of Sciences : next to the imperi- 

 al Libraries, this is the most considerable, for it contains 

 60,000 volumes : among which are 3,000 in Chinese, 

 Mantschou and Tongutschou. It is rich also in Asiatic 

 manuscripts, in drawings of plants and butterflies, and in 

 other objects of natural history, coming from Madame Mer- 

 lan and Dr. Fothergiil. The Russian works to the num- 

 ber of 3,000 are separate from the others. 5th. The Li- 

 brary of the Convent of J^ezvski containing Sclavonic manu- 

 scripts, acts of councils, writings of the German philoso- 

 opher Wolf, and many theological treatises. 6th. The Li- 

 brary of the corps of Imperial Cadets : it has more than 

 12,000 volumes, and is annually increasing. 7th. The Li- 

 brary of the College of Medicine. 8th. That of the Econom- 

 ical Society. 9th. That of the University, lately founded 

 and which has already 11,000 volumes. 



St, Petsrsburgh contains besides more than twenty pri- 

 vate libraries, worthy of being mentioned as well for their 

 extent as for the rare and valuable works which they con- 

 tain ; such are those of Counts Ischernichef, Schouvalof, 

 Ischeremetef, Strogonof, Youssoupof, Boutourlin, the late 

 princess Datschkof, counsellor Betzkoi, of prince Koura- 

 kin, of Lieutenant General Klinger ; the latter possesses 

 the best collection of literary, historical, philosophical and 

 political works in English, French, German and Italian. 

 It contains a beautiful collection of autographic manu- 

 scripts of prmces, oflicers, statesmen and learned men of 

 the different countries of Europe. This collection known 

 at first under the name of Doubrowski, is become imperial. 



Rev. Enc. 



14. Aurora Borealis. — A Royal Author. — The Ex-King 

 of Sweden (Colonel Gustavson) has printed at Frankfort, 

 a memoir entitled, " Reflections on the phenomena of the 

 Aurora Borealis and its relation to the diurnal motioD." 

 It is written in French, and dedicated to the Royal Acade- 

 my of Sciences of Norway. The Aurora Borealis has been 

 ascribed to various causes, — by Mairan to the solar atmos- 

 phere, — by Lemonier to a matter which exhales from our 

 globe, and arises to a prodigious height in the atmosphere, 

 by Dr. Franklin and others to electricity — by Dalton and 

 Arrago to an effect purely magnetic — this last opinion has 

 been generally adopted. Colonel Gustavson endeavours 



