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SIR RODERICK I, MURCHISON’S ADDRESS. [May 24, 1858. 
No scientific traveller (as H t Lamansky writes to me) had pre- 
viously visited the Thian Chan and Alataou beyond the river Ili. 
Hence M. Semenoff, following the advice of Humboldt, with whom 
he corresponded on the importance of explorations in Central Asia, 
decided to try to penetrate into the Thian Chan and to the southern 
shores of the Lake Issi-kul. His enterprise was crowned by suc- 
cess. He penetrated without difficulty to the mountains Santache, 
between the Karkara (affluent of the river Ili) and the Tiub, which 
falls into the Lake Issi-kul. Thence he continued his way among 
the armed and turbulent tribes of Kirghis of Little Bukhara, then at 
war with the Chinese government, and pursued his travels to the 
East in the valleys of Djirgalan and of the Terek ; this last form- 
ing the southern shore of the Lake Issi-kul. Before he reached the 
middle of that lake, the traveller turned abruptly to the south 
and advanced between the masses of rocky mountains of the Thian 
Chan through the transversal valley of Zaoukinsk. There, he found 
those alpine lakes, which, covered with ice even at the end of 
June, form the exterior or north-eastern limit of the fluvial system 
of the Syr-Daria. In another excursion to the south-east, from the 
Santache mountains, M. Semenoff penetrated through the lofty pass 
of Kosh-Djar, and reached the springs of Sarydjaz, whence flows 
the principal branch of the Oxus. 
Other labours of the Imperial Geographical Society have consisted 
in the publication of the general as well as detailed topographical 
maps of the government of Tver. The pecuniary resources of 
the Society seem, however, to be insufficient for the publication 
of maps of other provinces which are already prepared. 
The two last volumes of the Society’s Memoirs (vols. xi. and xii.) 
contain the very valuable memoirs of Helmersen and Pacht, who 
have shown the intimate connexion between geological phenomena 
and physical geography in their explorations of Central Eussia 
from the mouths of the Western Dwina to the Samara, accompanied 
by new geological maps. 
Let me here say that the Imperial Geographical Society has also 
taken an interest in the expedition to the Caspian Sea, conducted 
by the distinguished naturalist and geographer Baer, who has pub- 
lished some instructive articles on the fisheries in this sea. An- 
other memoir of Baer explains his views respecting the desic- 
cation of the vastly larger Caspian of former periods. But sound as 
are all the natural history descriptions of my eminent associate, few 
geologists, I apprehend, will agree with him that the waters of the 
