In the Academy of Science, the struggle against the dominant 

 foreign specialists was more difficult and lasted for a long 

 time. Among the foreign academicians and those who had 

 come to Russia only out of mercenary inducements and 

 opportunism, a group of authentic scientists was quickly 

 distinguished. They gave their adopted land all their 

 strength and abilities. In this group, besides Eiler, 

 Pallas, Gmelin and others, we must include Kaspar Friedrich 

 Wolff, who arrived in Russia in the spring of 1767. 



The arrival of Wolff in Petersburg coincided with the 

 return of the academic museum, the Kunstkamera, to its 

 previous building, which was re-established after its 1747 

 fire. The zoological collections of the Kunstkamera were 

 entrusted to Pallas, the botanical to Gmelin, and the 

 anatomical (and embryological) to Wolff. 13 When the first 

 two academicians left for an expedition to study Russia's 

 natural resources, the guidance of all natural history 

 collections of the Kunstkamera was placed under Wolff. In 

 addition he was delegated to receive the collections of the 

 expeditions and to assure the safety of those scientific 

 materials. 14 This vast organizational work did not prevent 

 Wolff from starting his serious study of the continuously 

 growing anatomical and embryological collections of the 

 Kunstkamera. While in Russia he devoted himself to this 

 ongoing activity. 



The years before Wolff's arrival in Petersburg, the 

 Academy of Science suffered a heavy loss. Mikhail Vasilevich 

 Lomonosov died at the prime of his creative power. Strong 

 traditions of strict investigation and materialism are 

 connected in Russian sciences with the name and genius of 

 Lomonosov. "One experiment," Lomonosov wrote, "I prefer to 

 six hundred opinions, born only by imagination." 1 ^ Along 



13. T. V. Stanyukovich, KUNSTKAMERA PETERBURGSKOI 

 AKADEMII NAUK (Kunstkamera of Petersburg Academy of 

 Science) (Moscow: Akademii nauk , 1953), p. 142. 



14. Ibid ., pp. 149, 154. 



15. Mikhail Vasil'evich Lomonosov, IZBRANNYE FILOSOFSKIE 

 SOCHINENIYA (Selected philosophical works) , edited and 

 preface by G. Vasetsky (Moscow, 1940), p. 109. In the 

 Latin original Lomonosov wrote "sexcenti," which means 

 not only "six hundred" but "a great number." Thus, of 

 course, this expression must be translated. 



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