Ixii PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



acquainted with the natural history and, especially, the botany of 

 Northern Siberia, offered himself for the purpose, and was expedited 

 under the sanction and with the aid of the Government. V. Baer, 

 in laying before the Academy the instructions given to M. Schmidt, 

 entered into a detailed review of all that was moi'o or less authen- 

 ticated relating to previous discoveries of Mammoth-remains in the 

 frozen regions of Northern Siberia, which, as well as the subsequent 

 communications from M. Schmidt, is published in the Proceedings 

 of the Academy. The reports proved to have been highly coloured. 

 Nothing had been found but detached bones and portions of skin 

 and flesh. M. Schmidt appears, however, to have collected numerous 

 data bearing upon the question discussed by Y. Eaer : — Did these 

 animals ever live in those high northern latitudes ? or were their re- 

 mains brought down in a half-decayed state with the huge masses of 

 ice borne by the floods of these great rivers, and prevented from fur- 

 ther decay by becoming buried in frozen masses until accident again 

 exposed them ? — the fleshy parts when discovered having been invari- 

 ably in a state of putrefaction. My friends in St. Petersburg in- 

 form me that M. Schmidt is preparing for immediate publication the 

 natural-historical results of this expedition, which, however, are 

 richer in botany than in zoology. 



Dr. Strauch has published, in the Memoires de I'Academie de 

 St. Petersbourg, a synopsis of the living species of Crocodiles, with 

 especial reference to those represented in the Museum of St. Peters- 

 burg ; Dr. Brandt, in the Bulletin, a paper on the Dodo ; and Pro- 

 fessor Kowalewski, in the Memoires, one on the development of the 

 Ctenophora. Various papers on Riissian Entomology have appeared 

 in the Bulletin de la Societe Iraperiale des Naturalistes at Moscow ; 

 and the ' Hora3 EntomologicaD ' of the St. Petersburg Entomological 

 Society are actively continued. 



The botanical establishment at the Imjierial Botanical Garden at 

 St. Petersburg has been entirely reorganized nnder the active direc- 

 tion of M. Trautvetter ; and by attaching to it three head botanists, 

 for the three several departments of systematic, physiological, and 

 cultural botany, he hopes to give a great impulse to the study of the 

 science. In the meantime Trautvetter himself, Kegel, Kuprecht, 

 and V. Herder have been working up the extensive contributions to 

 the floras of diff'erent provinces of their vast territories which had 

 been lying waste in their herbaria, especially those of Schrenck, 

 Radde, Semenow, &c. Maximowicz, whose travels in Mandschuria 

 and Japan had produced such rich materials, has been retarded in 



