PREFACE. 
IX 
P V, whenever it occurs at the beginning, or in 
the middle, of a word ; and an f whenever it is 
found as a termination. 
There is yet another letter of the Russian 
alphabet, which, from its frequent recurrence 
as an initial, requires a perfect reconciliation to 
some settled law of English orthography; viz. 
the TcMrve : this has the power of our ch, in 
cheese and child, and occurs in the name of the 
Cossacks of the Black Sea, Tchernomorski. With 
regard to words terminating in ai and oi, as 
V ildai, Paulovskoi, perhaps it would be well to 
substitute ay and oy, as Valday, Paulovskoy ; or 
1J on *y. as Faldy, Paulovsky ; which last offers a 
close imitation of the vulgar mode of pronun- 
ciation in general : but the variety caused by 
different dialects, in different parts of the 
empire, will, after every attention is paid to a 
settled rule of writing, occasion frequent per- 
plexity and embarrassment. 
In the orthography of the names of places 
immediately south of Moscoiv, frequent attention 
was paid to the Map of Reymann, published by 
Schmidt', at Berlin, in 1802. But even in that 
map, the territories of the Don Cossacks, Kuban 
Tartary, and the Crimea, appear only as a 
forlorn blank. Many years may expire before 
