198 On recent Russian Researches. [No. 2, 



prizes were instituted in 1821 called tbe Demidoff Prizes. In 1855, 

 the works for the prize amounted to twenty-five, of these eight were on 

 History, three on Statistics, two on Jurisprudence, one on Geography, 

 two Mathematical, one Natural Science, two Rural Economy, one Me- 

 dicine, four Philology. All were in the Russian language, indicating a 

 revulsion from the old practice of writing in French and German. 

 Prizes were in 1857 assigned for the following works — the Flora of Lake 

 Baikal — Fossil fish of the Silurian system near the Baltic — History 

 of Russian legislation to the time of Peter the Great — Hoffman's 

 tour to the Northern Uralian mountains — The Shipwrecks and 

 Burnings in the Russian navy — The inferior alga? and infusoria — His- 

 tory of the Moscow Academy — Systematic logic. One subject of the 

 prize for 1858 was an historical exposition of and statistical researches 

 on the emancipation of the peasantry in the different states of 

 Europe. 



In the department of Oriental Literature in 1857, we find Monsieur 

 Dorn actively pursuing his researches on the Muhammadan sources 

 serving to a history of the people on the South Coast of the Caspian ; 

 he has published two volumes of Persian texts on the subject. 

 Monsieur Khanikoff has presented a memoir of the Caucasus and a 

 notice of the journals of the Persian traveller Zeinel Abidin : valu- 

 able contributions of Sassanian coins with dissertations on their 

 dates have been made. Several members of the Russian Academy 

 are investigating the idiom, history and literature of the Afghans.* 

 Others are engaged on Kurd history : Monsieur Lerch, a Kurdish 

 scholar, was sent by the Academy to live among a number of Kurdish 

 prisoners brought into the Government of Smolensk for the purpose of 

 learning the Kurdish colloquially ; the Russian Consuls and Function- 

 aries have given warm co-operation in these investigations into Kur- 

 dish literature so important to a knowledge of the Iranian race. 

 Monsieur Schiefner is labouring on the Buriat, one of the purest off- 

 shoots of the Mongolian language as also on a Mongolian translation 

 of the Vetdl panchabinsati, which, like the Hitopadesh, has been 

 translated into many languages. 



M. Kunik has written a memoir on Russian Expeditions to the 



* On a recent occasion while the English Government subscribed for fire 

 copies of a Pushto Dictionary, the Eussian authorities subscribed for two 

 hundred. 



