May 24, 1858.] 
RUSSIA. 
279 
they had migrated south-westwards; their skeletons now only 
remaining. 
When the vast collection of animals and plants was gathered 
together and exhibited at Irkutsk, M. Selsky, who examined it, 
declared that, with the exception of Middendorf, Maksimovitch, and 
Schrenck, no traveller in Eastern Siberia had equalled M. Eadde in 
the number and diversity of the objects collected ; whilst the 
zoological and botanical maps which he has prepared in illustration 
of his researches ma}^ well be cited as proofs of his powers of 
generalization by enabling us to compare his data with those of 
Pallas, and thus measure the amount of change in the productions of 
nature which has taken place during the last 85 years in a region so 
little frequented by man, and where nature, untrammelled by arti- 
ficial appliances, reigns supreme.*' 
The naval officers and astronomers of the expedition directed to 
the river Amur, determined the principal bends of the river, and 
most important results for natural history science were obtained 
by M. Maak and the other members of the expedition. By their 
combined labours the maps of the course of the Amur were pre- 
pared. All the materials for the natural history of the country were 
collected and presented to the Imperial Geographical Society by 
M. Maak, and are about to be published in St. Petersburg. 
Both these great Eussian explorations are still in progress, and a 
list of all the astronomical observations, both on the Amur and in 
the Trans-Baikalian province, is given in the Eeport of the Imperial 
Geographical Society of 1857. This list enumerates 115 points, 
principally along the banks of the Amur and its great affluents. 
All the most important places of this great river and its general 
configuration are, in short, made known, and these determinations 
will serve as solid bases for preparing the map which is to accom- 
pany the publication of the results of the exploration of the highly 
interesting basin of the Amur. 
M. Semenoff, creditably known as the translator of the excellent 
work of Eitter into Eussian, has been furnished by the Imperial 
Geographical Society with the means to explore the Eussian Altai 
and the adjacent Kirghis deserts, already brought to the mind’s eye 
of the British public by the paintings of Atkinson. The Eussian 
work will thus acquire an originality of character by its copious 
additions. 
* Bull, de la Soc. Imp. des Naturalistes de Moscou, 1857. No. 1, p. 296, 
VOL. II. Z 
