iii 



seignorial duties would be perfectly compatible with a residence at 

 St. Petersburgh, and accordingly in the summer of 1834 he bade 

 good-bye to the scene of his labours and triumphs, and at the end of 

 the year entered upon his new duties at St. Petersburgh as zoological 

 member of the Academy of Sciences. He soon afterwards became 

 one of the librarians of the Academy's library, and in 1841 was 

 appointed Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology in the 

 Medico- Chirurgical Academy ; this latter post, however, he resigned 

 after* a few years. 



With his departure from Konigsberg Baer's labours as an embryo- 

 logist may be said to have closed ; the rest of his life he devoted to an- 

 thropology, using that word in its widest sense. He took advantage of 

 his position in the Academy to employ the resources of the Russian Em- 

 pire in collecting materials for the study of the natural history of man. 

 " Das Studium der Bildungsgeschichte des menschlichen Geschlechtes, 

 die hochste aller Wissenschaften." Not content with setting out others 

 on travels of inquiry, with drawing up instructions as to what they 

 should observe and collect, with directing and superintending the 

 publication of their results, he must needs himself undertake long 

 voyages ; and these were at intervals continued until he had reached 

 an advanced age. In 1837 he journeyed, not without dangers and 

 hardships, to Nova Zembla, and again in 1840 to the North Cape. 

 In 1851 he began with the assistance of the Imperial Government a 

 series of voyages in order to investigate the conditions of the fisheries 

 of the Russian Empire. Besides shorter visits to the northern seas he 

 spent nearly the whole of four years, from 1853 to 1857, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Caspian Sea, returning to St. Petersburgh twice only 

 during the interval. And in 1860 he again journeyed south, this 

 time to the Sea of Azov. In all these wanderings he had in view the 

 solution of problems not only of national economy but of. the distribu- 

 tion and conditions of life of animals, plants, and man, of natural 

 history, in fact, in its widest sense. It was chiefly in the interests of 

 anthropology that in 1858-61 he visited the museums of the Continent 

 and of London. 



In 1864 he celebrated the jubilee of his doctorate, on which occasion 

 was published, in a handsome volume, an account of his life, written 

 by himself, at the request of the Ritterschaft of his native province. 

 The same year, however, brought sorrow as well as joy, for it took 

 from him his wife ; and feeling himself now weighted with the burden 

 of years, he resigned his post as ordinary member of the Academy, 

 becoming an honorary member instead, and in 1866 removed to 

 Dorpat, where he could live more quietly than in the imperial city, 

 and where he was nearer to the family estate. But not even here did 

 he altogether rest, devoting much time in these later years to an 

 exposition of his general views, and especially to a criticism of 



