Digitale Ausgabe

If, in this solemn assembly, which evinces so noble a desire tohonour the labours of human intelligence, I venture to solicityour indulgence, it is only to fulfil a duty which you have im-posed upon me. When I had returned to my native country,after having travelled over the frozen crest of the Cordillerasand the forests of the lower equinoxial regions,—when I was re-stored to agitated Europe, after having for a long time enjoyedthe calm of nature, and the imposing aspect of savage fertility,

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* We are glad to be able to lay before our readers the very eloquentdiscourse of this distinguished traveller and philosopher, who has been sokind as to favour us thus early with a copy of it. It was printed by or-der of the Academy of Sciences.|287| I received from this illustrious Academy, as a public mark ofits favour, the honour of being made one of its members.Even now it is agreeable to look back to that epoch of my lifewhen that same eloquent voice which you have heard at theopening of this meeting, called me among you, and almost per-suaded me, by ingenious fictions, that I had deserved the palmwhich you had given me. How little could I then conjecturethat I should again sit under your presidency, after having re-turned from the banks of the Irtish, from the confines ofChina, Songaria, and the borders of the Caspian Sea! By afortunate combination of events, in the course of a troubled andsometimes laborious life, I have been able to compare the auri-ferous soil of the Oural and of New Granada; the elevatedformations of porphyry and trachyte of Mexico, with those ofthe Altai, and the Savannahs (Llanos) of the Orinoco, with theSteppes of Southern Siberia, which present a vast field for thepeaceable conquest of agriculture and to the arts of industry,which, while they enrich nations, soften their manners, and gra-dually ameliorate the condition of society. I have been able partly to carry the same instruments, orthose of a similar but improved construction, to the banks of theObi and the Amazon, during the long interval which has se-parated my two journeys, the aspect of the physical sciences,particularly of geognosy, chemistry, and the electro-magnetictheory, has been considerably changed. New apparatus, I hadalmost ventured to say, new organs have been created, to bringman into the most intimate contact with the mysterious forceswhich animate the work of creation, and of which the unequalstruggle, and the apparent perturbations are subject to eternallaws. If modern travellers are able to observe in a short timea great part of the surface of the globe, it is to the progress ofthe mathematical and physical sciences, to the precision of in-struments, to the improvement of methods, and to the art ofgrouping facts and raising them to general laws, that they owethe advantages which they enjoy. The traveller who is fittedfor observation, is he, who, by the valuable influence of Aca-demies, and by the pursuits of a sedentary life, has been pre-pared in the silence of his study. In order to form an accu-rate judgment of the merit of travellers of different periods, we |288| must be acquainted with the simultaneous progress of practi-cal astronomy, geognosy, meteorology and natural history.It is thus that the more or less flourishing cultivation of thegreat domain of science ought to reflect itself in the travellerwho wishes to rise to the level of his age; and that voyagesundertaken to extend the physical knowledge of the globe,ought, at different periods, to present an individual character,—the physiognomy of a given epoch,—and that they ought to bethe expression of the state of cultivation at which the scienceshave progressively arrived. In thus tracing the duties of those who have pursued thesame career with myself, and whose example has often rousedmy ardour under difficulties, I have noticed the source of thatsmall success which your generous indulgence has deigned tohonour by public suffrage. Having happily terminated a distant voyage, undertaken atthe command of a great monarch, and having been assisted bythe talents of two philosophers whose labours Europe appre-ciates, MM. Ehrenberg and Rose, I might confine myself atpresent to lay before you the homage of my warmest gratitude,—I might solicit from him, who, though yet young, has daredto penetrate into ancient mysteries, (the memorable sources ofthe religious and political civilization of Greece,) to lend mehis eloquence, that I might express more worthily the sentimentswith which I am impressed. But I know, Gentlemen, thateloquence which is not in accordance with the sincerity of theheart will not be sufficient in this assembly. You have beenentrusted in this vast empire with the great and noble missionof giving a general impulse to the cultivation of the sciencesand literature, to encourage labours connected with the actualstate of human knowledge, and to stimulate and enlarge thepowers of the mind, in the field of the higher mathematics andof terrestial physics, and in that of the history of nations illus-trated by the monuments of different ages. Your views havebeen directed to the career which is yet to be pursued; and thetribute of thanks which I now offer you,—the only one indeedworthy of your institution, is the solemn obligation which Itake to continue faithful to the cultivation of science, even tothe last hour of a life already advanced,—to explore nature un- |289| ceasingly, and to follow in the route which you and your illus-trious predecessors have traced. This community of action in the higher studies,—the recipro-cal aid which the different branches of human knowledge derivefrom each other,—the efforts made simultaneously in the twocontinents, and in the vast extent of the ocean, have given arapid impulse to the physical sciences, in the same manner, as af-ter the barbarous ages, simultaneous efforts gave an impulse to theprogress of reason. Happy is the country whose governmentyields a noble protection to letters and the fine arts, which notonly delight the imagination of man, but augment also his in-tellectual power, and give energy to his noblest thoughts;—to the physical and mathematical sciences which have such ahappy influence on the progress of industry and public prospe-rity;—to the zeal of travellers, who, forced to penetrate intounknown regions, or to examine the riches of the soil, or to ob-tain a correct knowledge of its surface. To recount at first asmall part of what has been done in the year which is about toclose, is to render to the Sovereign a tribute which, by its verysimplicity, must be agreeable to him. While in the Oural, the Altai, and the Caspian Sea, theefforts of MM. Rose, Ehrenberg, and myself, were directed tothe geognostic constitution of the soil, the relations between itselevations and depressions indicated by the barometer; the va-riations of terrestrial magnetism in different latitudes (particu-larly the increase of the inclination, and of the intensity of themagnetic forces;) the interior temperature of the globe; thestate of humidity of the atmosphere by means of a psychrome-trical instrument which had never before been employed in adistant voyage; the astronomical position of places; the geo-graphical distribution of vegetables, and of several groupes ofthe animal kingdom hitherto little studied—of the philosophersand intrepid travellers who smiled at the dangers of the snowysummits of Elborouz and Ararat. I congratulate myself in seeing safely returned into the bosomof the Academy, him from whom we have derived the mostvaluable notions on the horary variations of the magneticneedle, and to whom the sciences owe (independent of his inge-nious and delicate researches on crystallography,) the discovery |290| of the influence of temperature on the intensity of the electro-magnetic forces. M. Kupffer has lately returned from the Alpsof Caucasus, where, after the long migrations of the human spe-cies in the great shipwreck of nations and of languages, so manydifferent races have taken refuge. With the name of this travel-ler is associated the labours of a philosopher who has struggledwith a noble perseverance on the flanks of Ararat, (consideredas the classical soil of the earliest and most venerable recollec-tions of history,)—against obstacles which were opposed to him,both by the depth and the softness of eternal snow. I am al-most ashamed to wound the modesty of a father in adding, thatM. Parrot, the traveller of Ararat, sustains in the sciences thelustre of hereditary celebrity. In the more eastern regions of an empire, for ever illustri-ous by the labours of my countryman Pallas (pardon me, Gen-tlemen, for claiming for Prussia a part of that glory which issufficient to distinguish two nations at once,) in the mountainsof the Oural and of Kolyvan, we have followed the more recentroutes of MM. Ledebour, Meyer and Bunge, and MM. Hoff-mann and Helmersson. The fine and numerous Flora of Altaihas already enriched the botanical establishment of this capi-tal, which has risen almost as by enchantment, through thezeal of its directors, to the rank of the first botanical gardens ofEurope. The learned world expects with impatience the pub-lication of the Flora of Altai, of which Dr Bunge himself wasable, in the vicinity of Zmeinogorsk, to show to my friend, M.Ehrenberg, some interesting productions. This was, withoutdoubt, the first time that a traveller in Abyssinia, in Dongola,Sinai, and Palestine, had climbed the mountains of Riddersky,covered with perpetual snows. The geognostic description of the southern part of the Ouralwas entrusted to two young philosophers, MM. Hoffmann andHelmersson, one of whom had first made known the volcanoesof the South Sea. This selection was due to an enlightenedminister,—a friend of science and of its cultivation,—M. LeComte de Cancrin, whose affectionate care and provident acti-vity will never be forgotten by my colleagues and myself. MM.Helmersson and Hoffmann, pupils of the celebrated school ofDorpat, have successfully studied, during two years, the diffe- |291| rent branches of the Oural mountains,—from the great Taganaiand the granites of Iremel, to beyond the plateau of Gouber-linsk, which is connected farther south with the mountains ofMougodjares; and to Oust-Ourt, between Lake Aral and theCaspian Sea. Even there the rigour of winter did not preventM. Lemm from making the first astronomical observations inthis arid and uninhabited country. We enjoyed the greatpleasure of being accompanied for nearly a month by MM.Hoffmann and Helmersson, and it was they who first showed usnear Grasnuschinskaia a formation of volcanic amygdaloid, theonly one which has been yet found in the long Ouralian chainwhich separates Europe from Asia,—which presents on its east-ern declivity the most abundant eruptions of metals,—andwhich contains, either in veins or in the detritus, gold, platina,the osmiuret of Iridium, the diamond, (see this Number, p. 261)discovered by Count Polier in the alluvium to the west of thehigh mountains of Catschcanar, zircon, sapphire, amethyst,ruby, topaz, beryl, garnet, anatase, discovered by M. Rose, ceylanite, and other valuable substances found in India and theBrazils. I might extend the list of the important labours of the pre-sent year of his Majesty’s reign, by mentioning the trigonome-trical operations of the west, which, by the united labours ofMM. General Schubert and Tenner, and of the great astro-nomer of Dorpat, M. Struve, have made known on a greatscale the figure of the earth;—the geological constitution ofLake Baikal illustrated by M. Hess;—the magnetic expedi-tion of MM. Hansteen, Erman and Dowe, justly celebratedover all Europe, and the most extensive and the boldest thatwas ever undertaken by land, (from Berlin and Christiania toKamtchatka, where it joined the great labours of CaptainsWrangell and Anjou);—and, finally, the circumnavigation ofthe globe, which Captain Luetke has executed by order ofthe Sovereign,—a voyage abounding in fine astronomical, bota-nical, physical, and anatomical results, with the co-operation ofthree excellent naturalists, Dr Mertens, Baron Kittliz, and M.Postels. I have ventured to notice this community of efforts by whichseveral parts of the empire have been explored, by carrying |292| into them the aid of modern knowledge, new instruments, newmethods, and views founded on the analogy of facts alreadyknown. It is also by a community of interests, that, launchedonce more into the career of travels, I have thought it right toadorn my discourse with names which are dear to science. Afterhaving admired the riches of the mineral kingdom and the won-ders of physical nature, we love to celebrate (and it is an agree-able duty in a foreign land, and in the midst of a listening as-sembly,) the intellectual riches of a nation, the labours of menuseful and disinterested in their devotion to the sciences, whoeither travel through their country, or in solitude prepare, bycalculation and experiments, the discoveries of future generations. If, as we have proved by recent examples, the vast extent ofthe Russian empire, which exceeds that of the visible part ofthe moon, requires the concurrence of a great number of observ-ers, this same extent presents also advantages of another kindwhich have been long known to you, Gentlemen, but which, inrelation to the actual desiderata of terrestrial physics, do notappear to have been generally enough appreciated. I will notspeak of that immense scale on which, from Livonia and Fin-land to the South Sea which washes Eastern Asia and RussianAmerica, we may study, without going out of the empire, thestratification and formation of rocks of all ages,—the spoils ofmarine animals which the ancient revolutions of our planet haveengulphed in the bosom of the earth,—the gigantic bones ofterrestrial quadrupeds whose congeners are lost, or live only inthe tropical regions. I will not fix the attention of this assem-bly on the aid which the geography of plants and animals (ascience scarcely yet blocked out,) will some day derive from amore profound and specific knowledge of the climateric distri-bution of organized beings, from the happy regions of the Cher-sonesus and of Mingrelia,—from the frontiers of Persia andAsia Minor to the sad shores of the Frozen Sea. I shall con-fine myself at present to those variable phenomena whose regu-lar periodicity, confirmed by the rigorous accuracy of astrono-mical observations, will conduct directly to the discovery of thegreat laws of nature. If they had possessed in the school of Alexandria, and at thebrilliant epoch of the Arabs, (the first masters of the art of ob- |293| serving and interrogating nature by experiment,) the instru-ments which belonged to the great age of Galileo, of Huy-ghens, and of Fermat, we should have now known, by compa-rative observations, if the height of the atmosphere, the quan-tity of water which it contains and precipitates, and the meantemperature of places have diminished since those times. Weshould have known the secular changes of the electro-magneticcharge of our planet, and the modifications which may havetaken place, either from an increase of radiation, or from inter-nal volcanic changes, in the temperature of the different strataof the globe, which increases with the depth. We might haveknown, in short, the variations in the level of the ocean, thepartial perturbations which the barometrical pressure producesin the equilibrium of its waters, and the relative frequency ofcertain winds, depending on the form and condition of the sur-face of continents. M. Ostrogradsky would have submittedto profound calculations these data, accumulated for centu-ries, as he has recently resolved with success one of the mostdifficult problems in the propagation of waves. Unfortunately, in the physical sciences the civilization ofEurope is not of remote date. We are, as the priests of Saissaid of the Hellenes, a new people. The almost simultaneousinvention of those organs which bring us nearer to the materialworld, as the telescope,—the thermometer,—the barometer,—the pendulum, and that other instrument, the most general andpowerful of all,—the infinitesimal calculus, are scarcely olderthan thirty lustra. In this conflict of the forces of nature, aconflict which does not destroy stability, the periodical varia-tions do not seem to go beyond certain limits: They cause thewhole system to oscillate (at least in the present state of things,since the great convulsions which have buried so many genera-tions of plants and animals,) round a mean state of equilibrium.But the value of the periodic change is determined with a de-gree of precision proportional to the interval which has elapsedbetween the extreme observations. It is to scientific bodies which are renewed without interrup-tion; it is to academies,—to universities,—to different learnedsocieties in Europe, in the two Americas, at the southern ex-tremity of Africa, in India, and in that Australasia lately so |294| uncivilized, and where there has already risen a temple of Ura-nia, that we must look for regular observations, to measure, andto watch, as it were, whatever is variable in the economy of na-ture.* The illustrious author of the Mecanique Celeste has of-ten expressed verbally the same thought in the bosom of theInstitute, where I had the happiness of sitting with him duringeighteen years. The western nations have carried into different parts of theworld these forms of civilization,—this developement of humanknowledge, whose origin remounts to the epoch of the intellec-tual greatness of the Greeks, and to the gentle influence ofChristianity. Divided by language and manners, by politicaland religious institutions, enlightened nations form in our day(and it is one of the happiest results of modern civilization) buta single family, when they are occupied with the great inte-rests of science, of letters, and of the arts,—of whatever, hav-ing its origin within, raises man above the vulgar wants of so-ciety. In this noble community of interest and action, most of theimportant problems relating to terrestrial physics which I haveabove noticed, may doubtless become the object of simultaneousresearches; but the immense extent of the Russian empire inEurope, Asia, and America, presents peculiar and local advan-tages well worthy of one day occupying the attention of thisillustrious society. The impulse given from such a heightwould produce a powerful activity among the philosophers andobservers with whom your country is honoured. I venture topoint out at present, and to recommend to your special care,three objects which are not (as was formerly said in a miscon-ception of the connection of human knowledge,) purely specula-tive, but which closely affect the most material wants of life. The art of navigation, the study of which, encouraged by thehighest suffrage, has assumed (under the direction of a greatnavigator,) such a fortunate developement in this country,—theart of navigation has required for centuries a precise knowledge

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* This Observatory was the work of our eminent countryman Sir Tho-mas Brisbane, whose fate it seems to be to have his labours every wherepraised, and even the observations which he established, published, with-out the mention of his name!—Ed. |295| of the variations of terrestrial magnetism in the declination anddip of the needle, and in the intensity of its force; for the de-clination of the needle in different countries, which is more ex-clusively required by sailors, is intimately connected in theorywith the other two elements, the inclination and the intensity asmeasured by oscillations. At no preceding epoch has the know-ledge of the variations of terrestrial magnetism made such rapidprogress as within the last thirty years. The angle which theneedle forms with the vertical and with the meridian of a place,—the intensity of the forces which I have had the good for-tune to observe from the equator to the magnetic pole,—thehorary variations of the declination,—the inclination and the mag-netic intensity often modified by the aurora borealis, earthquakes,and mysterious motions in the interior of the globe,—the startsor non-periodical perturbations of the needle, which, after a longcourse of observations, I have distinguished by the name of magnetic storms, have become in their turn the object of themost elaborate research. The great discoveries of Oersted,Arago, Ampere, Seebeck, Morichini, and Mrs Somerville, havedisclosed to us the mutual relations of magnetism with electri-city, heat, and solar light. There are only three metals—iron,nickel, and cobalt, which become loadstones. The astonishingphenomenon of the magnetism of rotation, which my illustriousfriend, M. Arago first made known, shows us that almost all thebodies of nature are transiently susceptible of magnetic action.The Russian empire is the only country which is traversed withtwo lines of no declination,—that is, in which the needle is di-rected to the poles of the globe. One of these two lines, whoseposition and periodical motion of translation from east to westare the principal elements of a future theory of terrestrial mag-netism, passes, according to the latest researches of MM. Han-steen and Erman, between Mourom and Nijni-Novgorod; thesecond some degrees to the east of Irkoutsk, between Parchin-skaia and Iarbinsk. We do not yet know their prolongation tothe north, or the rapidity of their motion to the west. Terres-trial physics requires the complete trace of the two lines of nodeclination at equidistant epochs, every ten years for example,—the precise absolute variations of inclination and intensity inall the points where MM. Hansteen, Erman, and I, have ob- |296| served—in Europe, between St Petersburg, Kasan, and Astra-kan,—in Northern Asia between Iekaterinebourg, Miask, Oust-Kamenogorsk, Obdorsk, and Jakoutsk. These results cannot beobtained by strangers who traverse the country in one direc-tion, and at one time. It is necessary to establish a system ofobservations well arranged, continued during a long space oftime, and confided to philosophers established in the country. St Petersburg, Moscow, and Kasan, are fortunately placedvery near the first line of no declination which traverses Euro-pean Russia. Kiachta and Verkhné-Oudinsk offer advantagesfor the second, viz. that of Siberia. When we reflect on thecomparative precision of observations made by sea and land withthe aid of the instruments of Borda, of Bessel, and of Gambey,we may be readily convinced, that Russia, by its position, mayin the space of twenty years cause the most gigantic progressto be made in the theory of magnetism. In entering uponthese considerations, I am, so to speak, only the interpreter ofyour wishes, Gentlemen. The eagerness which which you havereceived the request which I addressed to you seven monthsago, relative to the corresponding observations of the horary va-riations made at Paris, at Berlin, in a mine at Freyberg, andat Kasan by the learned and laborious astronomer M. Simonoff,has proved that the Imperial Academy will ably second theother academies of Europe in the thorny but useful research ofthe periodicity of the magnetic phenomena. If the solution of the problem which I have mentioned isequally important for the physical history of our planet and theprogress of the art of navigation, the second object to which Iwish to draw your attention, Gentlemen, and for which the ex-tent of the empire presents immense advantages, is more closelyconnected with general wants,—with the choice of cultivation,—the study of the configuration of the soil,—and the exactknowledge of the humidity of the air, which obviously decreaseswith the destruction of forests and the diminution of the watersof lakes and rivers. The first and the noblest object of thesciences lies no doubt in themselves, in the enlargement of thesphere of our ideas, and of the intellectual energy of man. Itis not in an academy like yours, and under the monarch whorules the destiny of the empire, that the investigation of great |297| physical truths requires the support of a material and externalinterest—of an immediate application to the wants of social life;but when the sciences, without deviating from their noble andprimitive object, can boast of their indirect influence upon agri-culture and the arts of industry, (too exclusively called the use-ful arts,) it is the duty of the natural philosopher to bring for-ward the relations which exist between the study and the increaseof territorial wealth. A country which extends over more than 135 degrees of lon-gitude, from the happy zone of the olive tree to the climateswhere the soil is covered only with lichens, may advance morethan any other the study of the atmosphere, the knowledge ofmean annual temperatures, and what is more important for thecycle of vegetation, that of the distribution of the annual heatover the different seasons. Add to these data, in order to ob-tain a group of facts intimately connected with one another, thevariable pressure of the air, and the relation of this pressurewith the prevailing winds and the temperature,—the extent of thehorary variations of the barometer, (variations which, under thetropics, transform a tube filled with mercury into a kind ofclock with the most undisturbed movements)—the hygrometricstate of the air, and the annual quantity of rain, so importantto be known for the purposes of agriculture. When the variedinflexion of the isothermal lines shall be traced by accurate va-riations, and continued at least during five years in EuropeanRussia and Siberia;—when they shall be prolonged to theWestern Coasts of America, where that excellent navigator,Captain Wrangell, will soon reside, the science of the distribu-tion of heat at the surface of the globe, and in the strata ac-cessible to our researches, will rest on solid foundations. The government of the United States of North America,deeply interested in the progress of population, and of the va-ried culture of useful plants, has felt, for a long time, the ad-vantages presented by the extent of its territory, from the At-lantic to the Rocky mountains, from Louisiana and Florida,where sugar is cultivated, to the lakes of Canada. Meteorolo-gical instruments, compared with one another, have been dis-tributed over a great number of points, the selection of whichhas been the subject of discussion, and the annual results, re- |298| duced to a small number of figures are published by a centralcommittee who watch over the uniformity of the observations andthe calculations.—(See this Journal, No. xvi. and No. ii. NewSeries, p. 249.) I have already mentioned, in a memoir whereI have discussed the general causes on which the difference ofclimates in the same latitude depends, upon what a great scalethis fine example of the United States may be followed in theRussian empire. We are fortunately far from the epoch when philosophersbelieved that they knew the climate of a place when they knewthe highest and the lowest temperature during the year. Anuniform method, founded on the choice of hours, and on a levelwith the knowledge recently acquired respecting the true meansof the day, the month, and the year, will replace ancient anddefective methods. By this labour several prejudices on thechoice of culture, on the possibility of planting the vine, themulberry tree, fruit trees, the chesnut or the oak, will disappearin certain provinces of the empire. To extend it to the mostdistant parts we may reckon upon the enlightened co-operationof many of the young and well educated officers of the Corpsof Mines,—upon that of medical men, animated with a zeal forthe physical sciences,—and the pupils of that excellent institu-tion the School of Roads and Canals, in which the higher ma-thematical studies create an instinctive tact for order and pre-cision. Besides these two objects of research which we have examin-ed in reference to the extent of the empire, (terrestrial magne-tism and the study of the atmosphere which leads at the sametime by the aid of barometrical measurement to a perfectknowledge of the configuration of the ground,) I will placea third kind of investigation of a more local interest, thoughconnected with the great question of physical geography.A considerable part of the surface of the globe round the Cas-pian Sea is found inferior in level to that of the Black Sea andthe Baltic. This depression, which has been suspected to existfor more than a century, and measured by the laborious opera-tions of MM. Parrot and Engelhardt, may be ranked amongthe most interesting phenomena of geognosy. The exact de-termination of the mean annual barometric height of the town |299| of Orenburg due to MM. Hoffmann and Helmersson, a level-ling by station made by the same observers with the aid of abarometer, from Orenburg to Gourief, the east part of theCaspian Sea; corresponding measures taken during severalmonths in these two places; and lastly, observations which wehave recently made at Astrakhan and at the embouchure of theVolga, corresponding at the same time to Sarepta, Orenburg,Kasan, and Moscow, will serve (when all the data are unitedand rigorously calculated) to verify the absolute height of thisinterior basin. On the north side of the Caspian every thing at present ap-pears to indicate a progressive depression of the level of itswaters; but without placing too much trust in the relation ofHanway (an old English traveller, otherwise very estimable)respecting its periodical increase and decrease, we cannot denythe encroachments of the Caspian on the side of the ancienttown of Terek, and to the south of the embouchure of the Cyrus,where scattered trunks of trees (the remains of a forest) arefound constantly inundated. The small island of PogorelaiaPlita, on the contrary, seems to increase and rise progressivelyabove the waves which covered it a few years ago, before thejet of flames which navigators perceived at a distance. In order to solve completely the great problems relative tothe depression, perhaps variable, of the level of the sea andthat of the continental basin of the Caspian, it would be de-sirable to trace in the interior of the land round this basin, inthe plains of Sarepta, Ouralsk, and Orenburg a ligne desonde, by uniting the points which are exactly on the level ofthe Baltic and the Black Sea, which will be compared withmarks placed on the coast in the whole circuit of the Caspian,(like the marks placed almost a century ago on the Swedishshores by the Academy of Stockholm) if there is a general orpartial, a continued or a periodical depression of its waters, orif rather (as has been conjectured for the whole of Scandina-via, by that great geognost, M. Lepold de Buch,) a part of theneighbouring continent is raised or depressed by volcanic causesacting at immense depths in the interior of the globe. Themountainous isthmus of the Caucasus, composed partly oftrachyte and other rocks, which owe their origin to volcanic fire, |300| bounds the Caspian Sea to the west, whilst it is surrounded tothe east with tertiary and secondary formations, which stretchtowards those countries of ancient celebrity, of which Europeowes the knowledge to the important work of Baron de Mey-endorf. In these general views, which I submit to your conside-ration, Gentlemen, I have endeavoured to point out some ofthe advantages which the physical history of the globe mayderive from the position and extent of this empire. I have ex-plained the ideas which were deeply impressed upon me by asight of the regions which I have visited. It appeared to memore suitable to render public honours to those, who, underthe auspices of government, have pursued the same career asmyself, and to draw attention to what remains to be done forthe progress of science and the glory of your country, than tospeak of my own efforts, and to condense into a narrow space theresults of observations which require still to be compared with thegreat mass of partial data which we have collected. I havementioned in this discourse the extent of the countries whichseparate the line of no variation to the east of Lake Baikal,from the basin of the Caspian;—of the valleys of Cyrus andthe frozen summits of Ararat. At these names we involuntari-ly revert to that recent struggle, in which the moderation of theconqueror has increased the glory of his arms, which has open-ed new roads to commerce, and completed the deliverance ofthat Greece, which has long been the abandoned cradle of thecivilization of our ancestors. But it is not within these peace-ful walls that I should celebrate the glory of arms. The augustmonarch who has deigned to invite me into this country and tosmile upon my labours, appears to me as the genius of peace.Encouraging, by his example, all that is true, great, and ge-nerous; he has been pleased, from the dawn of his reign, toprotect the study of the sciences which strengthen reason, andof letters and the arts, which adorn the character of nations.