Geographical Cdlhection® 5D 
river Lena to the Frozen Ocean, and they intend to meet again at Jeuiseish in 
September or October. Dr. Erman, according to the Leipzig Liter. Zeitung. 
No. 254. will return into Europe by Kamtschatka and the north-west part of 
America, and will then accomplish a journey round the world, which three most 
eccentric British travellers (uedyard, Cochrane, and Holman) have previously 
unsuccessfully attempted. : 
Ledyard, it is well known, was suddenly arrested at Irkutzk, on pretence of 
his being a French spy, and, by an absolute order of the Empress Catharine IT. 
he was hurried back from Siberia in a kibilka between two guards. Capt. Coch- 
rane’s reasons for not proceeding, however specious in Great Britain, are not alto- 
gether satisfactory to those acquainted with the subject in Russia; and, as Dr 
Lyall has well remarked, sledges, dogs, and provisions are wanted for travelling 
in the land of Tchutchi, and it is not to be thought that they will be furnished 
without remuneration. Holman, who was stone blind, had also all his plans 
blasted by the Russian Government. 
The discoveries of Hansteen have excited much interest in England ; and the 
American government, who are, we understand, going to send out a scientific ex- 
pedition to the south, have been written to, that a series of similar observations 
may be carried on. We have also heard that the intelligent and enterprising 
traveller, Mr Douglass, is receiving from Captain Sabine instructions in the me- 
thod of making mathematical and physical observations. 
Voyage of the Chevretie. 
THE minister of the marine wrote to the Academy of France last January, ex- 
pressing his desire that a report should be drawn up on the observations and col- 
lections made by the officers of the king’s vessel, the Chevrette, during the voy- 
age which it had executed in the Indian Seas, under the command of Mr. Habre, 
lieutenant in the navy. 
Accordingly, various commissions were formed out of that learned body, to ex- 
amine into the labour of different kinds executed on board this vessel, which we 
shall introduce here, with some abbreviations, in the order in which they came 
before the Academy. The Baron Cuvier, M.M. Desfontaines, Geoffroy St. Hi- 
laire, and Dumeril, were appointed to report on what concerned natural history. 
“ It is a duty of Sire we have acquitted ourselves with so much the more plea- 
sure, (say they,) as it gives us an opportunity to testify all the gratitude which 
naturalists owe to men who have done the greatest and most disinterested ser= 
vices to their science.’ It was not a part of the mission of these gentlemen to 
make collections, nor even to occupy themselves in an especial manner with natu- 
tural history ; but their enlightened zeal led them to undertake a task, which they 
haye accomplished as if they had been long prepared for it. Mr. Reynaud, chief 
surgeon, gave the example, and the military officers, encouraged by ‘ase chief, 
Captain Fabré, have seconded him with an assiduity worthy of being appealed to 
as an example. The lieutenant, Mr. de Blosseville, especially, and Mr. Gabert, 
have not only placed in the collection all that they procured in their expeditions, 
but they employed their moments of leisure in drawing the interesting animals, 
when they were so numerous that Mr. Reynaud ‘could not accomplish the exami- 
nation of all. He himself was not master of his time: deprived of the aid of the 
assistant-surgeon, Mr. Brossard, whom necessary duties had detained at Pondi- 
cherry, the health of the crew depended on him ; but with a spirit of order and 
enthusiasm, every thing may be done, and this young man has given the most 
marked proofs of both these qualities. Nothing has been neglected. The small- 
est mollusce, the frailest zoophytes, have been numbered like the fish, the birds, 
and the quadrupeds. All objects, whose form or colour would be altered by pre- 
paration, were drawn immediately, and notices of the places where they have been 
