Digitale Ausgabe

Gentlemen, If, on this occasion, when there is manifested a noble ardourfor honouring the labours of human intellect, I venture to craveyour indulgence, I do so only in discharging a duty which youhave imposed upon me. On returning to my native country,after traversing the icy ridges of the Cordilleras, and the greatforests of the equinoctial regions, and on being restored to Eu-rope, then agitated by wars, after long enjoying the peaceful-ness of nature, and the imposing aspect of wild luxuriance, I re-ceived from this illustrious Academy, as a public mark of itsgood will, the honour of being associated with it. I still loveto turn my thoughts toward the period of my life when thesame eloquent voice which you have heard at the opening ofthis meeting, called me into the midst of you, and, by ingeniousfictions, almost persuaded me that I had merited the palm whichyou conferred upon me. How far was I then from thinkingthat I should not sit at a meeting over which you, Sir *, pre-side, until I had returned from the banks of the Irtisch, theconfines of Chinese Songarie, and the shores of the Caspian Sea!By the fortunate concatenation of events in the course of a rest-less and sometimes laborious life, I have been enabled to com-pare the auriferous deposits of the Uralian Mountains and NewGrenada—the porphyry and trachyte formations of Mexico andAltai—the savannas of the Orinoco, and the steppes of South-ern Siberia, which offer a vast field to the peaceful conquests ofagriculture, and to those arts which, while they add to theriches of nations, soften their manners, and progressively im-prove the condition of society. I have been enabled to carry, in part, the same instruments,or those of similar but improved construction, to the shores ofthe Obi and the River of Amazons. In the long interval be-tween my two journeys, the physical sciences, and especiallygeognosy, chemistry, and the electro-magnetic theory, have

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* M. Ouvaroff, Preaident of the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences.|98| undergone considerable changes. New instruments, I might al-most say new organs, have been invented to bring man intomore immediate contact with the mysterious powers which ani-mate the works of creation, and of which the apparent disturb-ances and irregularities are subject to eternal laws. If moderntravellers can submit to their observations, in a brief period oftime, a larger portion of the earth’s surface, it is to the improve-ments effected in the mathematical and physical sciences, to theprecision of our instruments, the perfection of our methods, andthe art of grouping facts and rising to general considerations,that they owe the advantages which they possess. The travellerapplies to use what, through the beneficial influence of societies,and the studies of sedentary life, has been prepared in the silenceof the cabinet. To judge with equity and justice the merit oftravellers of different times, we must be acquainted with thedegree of development which practical astronomy, geognosy,meteorology, and descriptive natural history, had simultaneouslyacquired. It is thus that the degree of culture of the great do-main of the sciences must be reflected in the traveller who wouldraise himself to the level of his times; and, in this manner,travels undertaken for the extension of the physical knowledgeof the globe, must at different ages present an individual cha-racter—the physiognomy of a given epoch. They exhibit apicture of the state of cultivation through which the scienceshave progressively passed. In thus tracing the duties of these who have gone throughthe same career as myself, and whose example has often re-kindled my ardour in moments of difficulty, I have pointed outthe source of the feeble success of a devotion, which your gene-rous indulgence has condescended to magnify by public testi-monials of your approbation. Finishing under happy auspices a long journey, undertakenby the order of a magnanimous monarch, powerfully aided bythe knowledge of two philosophers, whose labours Europe has ap-preciated, MM. Ehrenberg and Rose, I might here confine my-self to laying before you the homage of my lively and respectfulgratitude;—I might solicit him who, young as he still is, hasventured to penetrate into those ancient mysteries, the memo-rable sources of the religious and political civilization of Greece,to lend the aid of his eloquence to enable me to express more |99| worthily the sentiments by which I am animated. But I amaware, Gentlemen, that the charm of eloquence, were it even inaccordance with the vivacity of feeling, is not sufficient in thisassembly. You have been charged in this vast empire with thegrand and noble mission of giving a general impulse to the cul-tivation of science and literature—of encouraging the labourswhich are in harmony with the present state of human know-ledge—of vivifying and enlarging the mind in the domain ofthe higher mathematics, the physical history of the globe, andthe history of the nations as illustrated by the monuments ofdifferent ages. Your view is directed forwards to the careerwhich remains to be run, and the tribute of gratitude whichI offer you—the only tribute worthy of your Institution—isthe solemn engagement by which I now bind myself to remainfaithful to the cultivation of the sciences to the last moment ofan already advanced career, to explore nature unceasingly, andto pursue a course which has been traced by you and your il-lustrious predecessors. This community of action in the higher studies, the aid whichthe different branches of human acquirement lend to each other,and the efforts that have been made at the same time in the twocontinents, and in the wide expanse of the seas, have impressed arapid movement upon the physical sciences, as, after ages ofbarbarism, the simultaneousness of efforts similarly affected theprogress of reason. Happy the country whose government ac-cords an august protection to literature and the arts, which do notmerely delight the imagination of man, but also increase his in-tellectual power and enlarge his conceptions;—to the physicalsciences and the mathematics, which have so beneficial an influ-ence upon the development of industry and public prosperity;—to the zeal of travellers, who force their way into unknown re-gions, or explore the riches of their native soil, and determineby accurate measurements the nature of its configuration! Inhere recalling to mind a small part of what has been done inthe year now about to close, I am rendering to the Prince aheritage which, by its very simplicity, cannot be displeasing tohim. While MM. Rose and Ehrenberg and myself have, betweenthe Ural, the Altai, and the Caspian Sea, examined the geogno- |100| stical constitution of the ground—the relations of its heights anddepressions, indicated by barometrical measurements—the varia-tions of the earth’s magnetism in different latitudes (especiallythe augmentations of the inclination and intensity of the mag-netic forces)—the temperature of the interior of the globe—thestate of humidity of the atmosphere, by means of a psychrome-tric instrument, which had not previously been employed on along journey—and, lastly, the astronomical position of someplaces, the geographical distribution of vegetables, and of seve-ral groups of the animal kingdom hitherto little known; philo-sophers and intrepid travellers have confronted the dangers pre-sented by the snow-clad summits of Elborouz and Ararat. I feel happy in seeing safely restored to the bosom of theAcademy him whose valuable ideas respecting the hororary va-riations of the magnetic needle we have just received, andto whom the sciences are indebted (along with ingenious anddelicate researches in crystallography) for the discovery of theinfluence of temperature upon the intensity of the electro-mag-netic powers. M. Kupfer has recently returned from the Cau-casian Alps, among which, after long migrations of the humanrace, in the great shipwreck of nations and tongues, so manydifferent tribes have found refuge. To the name of this travel-ler, our learned associate, is joined, by similarity of labours, thename of the philosopher who, with a noble perseverance, hasstruggled on the ridges of Ararat, regarded as the classic soil ofthe earliest and most venerable recollections of history, with theobstacles which the depth and softness of the eternal snows pre-sented to him. I am almost afraid of wounding the modesty ofthe father, by adding, that M. Parrot, the traveller of Ararat,worthily sustains in the sciences the lustre of a hereditary cele-brity. In the more eastern regions of the empire, which have re-ceived illustration from the immortal labours of my country-man Pallas, (pardon me, Gentlemen, if I claim for Prussia partof the glory of which two nations at once may be proud), in theUralian and Kolyvan mountains, we have followed the still re-cent traces of the scientific expeditions of MM. Ledebour,Meyer and Bunge, and of MM. Hoffmann and Helmersen. Thebeautiful Flora of the Altai has already enriched the botanical |101| establishment with which this capital is honoured, and whichhas risen, as by enchantment, thanks to the indefatigable and en-lightened zeal of its director, to the rank of the first botanicalgardens of Europe. The scientific world waits with impatiencethe publication of the Flora of the Altai, of which Dr Bungehimself, in the neighbourhood of Zmeinogorsk, shewed my friendM. Ehrenberg some interesting productions. It was unques-tionably the first time that a traveller from Abyssinia, Dongola,Sinai and Palestine, ascended the mountains of Riddersky, co-vered with perpetual snows. The geognostical description of the southern part of the Uralhas been confided to two young naturalists, MM. Hoffmann andHelmerssen, one of whom was the first who gave an accurateaccount of the volcanoes of the South Sea. This choice is dueto an enlightened minister, a friend of science and its cultivators,the Count Cancrin, whose kind attention, activity and foresight,have impressed my fellow-labourers and myself with a gratitudenot to be effaced. MM. Helmerssen and Hoffmann, pupils ofthe celebrated school of Dorpat, have studied for two yearswith success the different ramifications of the Ural Mountains,from the great Taganai, and the granites of Iremel, to beyondthe plain of Gouberlinsk, which is connected, more to the south,with the Mougodjares Monntains, and to the east between LakeAral and the basin of the Caspian Sea. It was there that M.Lemm, in spite of the severity of the winter, made the first ac-curate astronomical observations that have been obtained of thisarid yet inhabited country. We had the great satisfaction ofbeing accompanied for a month by MM. Hoffmann and Hel-merssen, and it was by them that we were first shewn a forma-tion of volcanic amygdaloids, near Grasnuschinskaia, the onlyones that have as yet been discovered in the long chain of theUral which separates Europe and Asia, which presents the mostabundant eruptions of metals on its eastern slope, and whichcontains, in veins or in alluvium, gold, platina, osmiuret of iri-dium, diamonds, discovered by Count Polier in alluvia to thewest of the lofty mountain of Catschcaner, zircon, sapphire,amethyst, ruby, topaz, beryl, garnet, anatase, found by M. Rose,the celylanite, and other valuable productions of India andBrasil. I might extend the list of important labours performed in the |102| present year of his Majesty’s reign, by speaking of the trigone-metrical observations of the west, which, by the union of the la-bours of Generals Schubert and Tenner, and of M. Struve, thegreat astronomer of Dorpat, will elucidate the figure of theEarth on a great scale;—of the geological constitution of LakeRaikal, which has been examined by M. Hess;—of the magne-tic expedition of MM. Hansteen, Erman and Dowe, justly cele-brated over all Europe, the most extensive and adventurousthat has ever been undertaken by land (from Berlin and Chris-tiania to Kamtchatka, where it connects itself with the great la-bours of Captains Wrangell and Anjou);—lastly, of the cir-cumnavigation of the globe, which, by the command of the So-vereign, Captain Luethe has performed, and which, throughthe co-operation of three excellent naturalists, Dr Mertens, Ba-ron Kittliz, and M. Postels, has been productive of importantresults in Astronomy, Physica, Botany and Anatomy. I have undertaken to point out this community of efforts bywhich several portions of the empire have been explored, by theaid of modern science, by that of new instruments, and newmethods, founded upon the analogy of facts formerly unknown.It is also by a community of interests that, having once moreventured upon a new journey, I have found pleasure in adorn-ing my discourse with names which have become dear to science.After having admired the richness of the mineral productions,the wonders of physical nature, one loves to point out (and it isa pleasant duty to perform in a strange land, in the midst ofthe assembly which listens to me) the intellectual richness of anation, the labours of those useful men, disinterested in theirdevotion to science, who traverse their country, or, in solitude,prepare by study, by calculation and experiment, the discoveriesof future generations. If, as we have proved by recent examples, the vast extent ofthe Russian Empire, which surpasses that of the visible part ofthe moon, requires the concurrence of numerous observers, thisvery extent also presents advantages of another kind, whichhave long been known to you, Gentlemen, but which, in theirrelation to the present state of our knowledge of the physicalhistory of the earth, do not appear to me to have been suffi-ciently appreciated; I would not speak of that immense scale, |103| from Livonia and Finland to the South Sea, which washes theshores of eastern Asia and Russian America, on which the po-sition and formation of rocks of all ages may be studied, withinthe limits of the same empire; the remains of those pelagic ani-mals which the ancient revolutions of our planet have buriedim the bowels of the earth; the gigantic bones of land quadru-peds now lost, or whose kindred species live only in the tropicalregions;—I would not draw the attention of this assembly tothe aids which the geography of plants and animals (a scienceonly commencing its existence) will one day derive from a moreprofound specific knowledge of the climatic distribution of or-ganized beings, from the happy regions of the Chersonesus andMingrelia, from the frontiers of Persia and Asia Minor, to themelancholy shores of the Frozen Ocean;—I prefer confiningmyself to those variable phenomena whose regular periodicity,determined with the rigorous precision of astronomical observa-tions, would lead directly to the discovery of the great laws ofnature. If, in the school of Alexandria, and at the splendid epoch ofthe Arabians (the first masters in the art of observing and in-terrogating nature by means of experiment), the instrumentswhich we owe to the great age of Galileo, Huygens and Fer-mat, had been known, we should now know, by comparativeobservations, if the height of the atmosphere, the qualitity ofwater which it contains and precipitates, and the mean tempe-rature of places, have diminished in the course of ages; weshould know the secular changes of the electro-magnetic chargeof our planet, and the modifications which the temperature ofthe different strata of the globe, increasing in the ratio of thedepth, may have undergone, whether through an augmentationof radiation, or from internal volcanic motions; lastly weshould know the variations of the level of the ocean, the partialdisturbances caused by the barometrical preasure in the equili-brium of the seas, and the relative frequency of certain winds,depending upon the form and surfaces of the continents. M.Ostrogradsky would submit to his profound calculations thesedata, that had accumulated through ages, as he has recentlysolved with success one of the most difficult problems of thepropagation of vibrations. |104| Unfortunately, in the physical sciences, the civilisation ofEurope did not commence at so early a period. We are, as thepriests of Sais said of the Hellenes, a new people. The almostsimultaneous invention of those organs by which we are broughtinto contact with the external world,—the telescope, the thermo-meter, the barometer, the pendulum, and that other instrument,the most general and the most powerful of all, the infinitesimalcalculus,—hardly dates thirty lustrums back. In this conflict ofthe powers of nature, which yet does not destroy her stability,the periodical variations do not seem to surpass oertain limits;they make the entire system oscillate round a mean state of equi-librium,—at least such is the case in the present state of things,since the great cataclysms which swallowed up so many genera-tions of animals and plants. Now the value of the periodicalchange is determined with so much the more precision, thegreater the interval between the extreme observations. It is the duty of the scientific bodies which are continuallyforming and renovating themselves,—the academies, the univer-sities, the many learned societies scattered over Europe, in thetwo Americas, at the southern extremity of Africa, in India, andeven in New Holland, which, although but of late so wild, al-ready possesses an observatory,—to observe, to measure, and, asit were, to watch over, what is variable in the economy of na-ture. The illustrious author of the Mecanique Celeste, has of-ten verbally expressed the same thought in the midst of the In-stitute, where I have had the honour of sitting with him foreighteen years. The western nations have carried into the different parts ofthe world those forms of civilization, that development of thehuman intellect, whose origin ascends to the epoch of the intel-lectual greatness of the Greeks, and to the gentle influence ofChristianity. Divided in languages and manners, and in politi-cal and religious institutions, the enlightened nations form inour days but a single family (and this is one of the most beauti-ful results of modern civilization), when the object in view isthe great interests of science, literature, and art, all that, spring-ing from an internal source, the depths of thought and feeling,elevates man above the vulgar cares of society. In this noble community of interests and action, most of the |105| important problems which have reference to the physics of theglobe, and which I have pointed out above, may, without doubt,become the object of simultaneous researches; but the immenseextent of the Russian Empire in Europe, Asia, and America,presents peculiar and local advantages, well worthy of occupy-ing, for one day, the thoughts of this illustrious society. Animpulse given from so high a source would produce a happy ac-tivity among the observers with which your country is honour-ed. I would venture to point out here, and to recommend toyour notice, three objects which are not (as was once said undera misapprehension of the concatenation of human acquirements)merely speculative and theoretical, but which have intimate re-ference to the ordinary wants of life. The nautical art, the teaching of which, encouraged by thehighest patronage, has, under the direction of a great navigator *,assumed so happy a development in this country, has, for cen-turies back, required a precise knowledge of the variations ofthe earth’s magnetism in declination, inclination, and intensityof forces, for the declination of the needle in different seas, theappreciation of which is more exclusively required by mariners,is intimately connected in theory with two other elements, theinclination and the intensity measured by oscillations. At noformer period did the knowledge of the variations of the terres-trial magnetism make so rapid advances as within the last thirtyyears. The angles which the needle forms with the vertical andthe meridian of the place,—the intensity of forces, of which I havehad the good fortune to ascertain the increase from the equatorto the magnetic pole,—the horary variations of inclination, decli-nation, and intensity, often modified by the aurora borealis,earthquakes, and mysterious motions in the interior of the earth,—the irregular disturbances of the needle, which I have designat-ed, in a long course of observations, by the name of magnetic tem-pests,—have, in their turn, become objects of the most laboriousresearches. The great discoveries of Oerstedt, Arago, Ampere,Seebeck, Morichini, and Mrs Somerville, have revealed to usthe mutual relations of magnetism with electricity, heat and solarlight. There are only three metals, Iron, Nickel, and Cobalt,that become magnetic. The surprising phenomenon of rotatorymagnetism, which my illustrious friend M. Arago first made

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* Admiral Krusenstern.|106| known, shews us that nearly all the bodies in nature are transi-torily susceptible of electro-magnetic actions. The Russianempire is the only country on earth traversed by two lines with-out declination, or along which the needle is directed towardsthe poles of the earth. One of these two lines, whose positionand periodical motion of translation from east to west, are theprincipal elements of a future theory of the terrestrial magnetism,passes, according to the last researches of MM. Hansteen andErman, between Mourom and Nijni-Novogorod; the second,some degrees to the east of Irkoutsk between Parchnikaia andJarbinsk. Their prolongation northwards, and the rapidity oftheir motion westward, are not yet known. The physics of theglobe require the complete tracing of the two lines without de-clination, at equi-distant periods, for example, every ten years,—the precise determination of the absolute variations of inclinationand intensity at all the points where MM. Hansteen, Erman,and myself, have observed in Europe, between St Petersburg,Cazan and Astracan, in Northern Asia between Jekaterinburg,Miask, Oust-Kamenogorsk, Obdorsk, and Jakoutsk. These re-sults cannot be obtained by strangers who traverse the countryin a single direction, and at a single period. There is requireda system of combined observations, carried on during a long pe-riod of time, and confided to observere established in the differ-ent countries. St Petersburg, Moscow, and Cazan, are fortu-nately situated very near the first line of no declination, whichtraverses European Russia. Kiachta and Verkhné-Oudinsk pre-sent advantages for the second or Siberian line. When we re-flect on the comparative precision of observations made at seaand on land, with the aid of the instruments of Borda, Bessel,and Gambey, we may easily be persuaded that Russia, by itsposition, is capable of forwarding the theory of magnetism in avery great degree, in the space of twenty years. In speakingof these matters, I am only, gentlemen, in a manner, the inter-preter of your desires. The manner in which you received therequest which I addressed to you, seven months ago, relative tothe correspondent observations of horary variations made atParis, at Berlin, in a mine at Freyberg, and at Cazan, by thelearned and laborious astronomer M. Simonoff, has proved thatthe Imperial Academy will worthily second the other academies |107| of Europe in the thorny, but useful, research into the periodi-city of all the magnetic phenomena. If the resolution of the problem which I have just pointedout, is equally important for the physical history of our planetand the improvement of the art of navigation, the second objectwhich I have to lay before you, and for which the extent of theempire presents immense advantages, is more immediately con-nected with general wants,—the cultivation of the soil, the exa-mination of the configuration of the ground, the exact know-ledge of the humidity of the air, which visibly decreases withthe destruction of the forests and the diminution of the water oflakes and rivers. The first and noblest object of science re-sides undoubtedly in themselves, in the enlargement of thesphere of ideas, and of the intellectual power of man. It is notin the bosom of an academy like yours, under the monarch whoregulates the destinies of the empire, that the research of greatphysical truths requies the support of a material and externalinterest, of an immediate application to the wants of sociallife: but when the sciences, without deviating from their nobleprimary object, are capable of exercising a direct influence uponagriculture and the arts (which are too exclusively called use-ful), it is the duty of the philosopher to point out these rela-tions between the scientific investigation of countries, and theincrease of territorial riches. A country which extends over more than 135 degrees oflongitude, from the happy zone of the olive to the climates inwhich the ground is only covered with lichens, is more than anyother capable of advancing the study of the atmosphere, theknowledge of the mean temperatures of the year, and, what ismuch more important for the cycle of vegetation, that of thedistribution of the annual heat among the different seasons.Add to these data for obtaining a group of facts intimatelyconnected with each other, the variable pressure of the air, andthe relation of this pressure to the predominant winds and thetemperature, the extent of the horary variations of the barome-ter (which under the tropics, transform a tube filled with mer-cury into a kind of time-piece of most imperturbable regularityin its progress), the hygrometric state of the air, and the annualquantity of rain, which it is of so much importance to theagriculturist to know. When the varied inflections of the |108| isothermal lines, or lines of equal heat, shall be traced by accu-rate observations, and continued at least five years, in EuropeanRussia and Siberia; when they shall have been prolonged tothe western coasts of America, where an excellent navigatorCaptain Wrangel, is soon to reside,—the science of the distribu-tion of heat at the surface of the globe, and in the strata acces-sible to our researches, will be established upon solid founda-tions. The government of the United States of North America,keenly interested in the progress of population, and of an exten-sive cultivation of useful plants, has long been sensible of theadvantages afforded by the great extent of its possessions fromthe Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains, from Louisiana and Flo-rida, where the sugar-cane is cultivated, to the Canadian lakes.Meteorological instruments, after being compared with eachother, have been distributed over a great number of places, theselection of which has been submitted to minute discussion,and the annual results, reduced to a small number of figures, arepublished by a central committee, which watches over the uni-formity of the observations and calculations. I have alreadypointed out in a memoir, in which I have discussed the generalcauses upon which the differences of climate in the same lati-tude depend, on how great a scale this beautiful example of theUnited States might be followed in the Russian Empire*. We are happily far removed from the period when philoso-phers thought they knew the calimate of a place, when theyknew the extremes of temperature attained by the thermome-ter in winter and summer. A uniform method, founded uponthe choice of hours, and up to the level of our recently acquir-ed knowledge of the true means of the days, months, and wholeyear, will replace the old and defective methods. By this in-vestigation, various prejudices respecting the selection of objectsof cultivation, the possibility of planting the vine, the mulberry,the chesnut, or the oak, will disappear in certain provinces ofthe empire. To extend it to the most remote parts, we mayreckon upon the enlightened co-operation of many well-educatedyoung officers, with whom the Corps des Mines is honoured,that of physicians animated by zeal for the physical sciences,

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* This beautiful memoir was published in vol. iv. of the New Series of thisJournal.|109| and upon the pupils of that excellent institution, the School ofCanals, Bridges, and Roads, in which mathematical studies of ahigh order give rise to a kind of instinctive taste for order andprecision. Along with the two objects of research which we have justexamined in their relation to the extent of the empire (the earth’smagnetism and the study of the atmosphere, which leads at thesame time, by the aid of the mean heights of the barometer, tothe improved knowledge of the configuration of the ground), Iwould mention, in concluding, a third kind of inquiry of a morelocal interest, although connected with the great questions ofphysical geography. A considerable part of the earth’s surfacearound the Caspian Sea, is inferior to the level of the Black Seaand the Baltic. This depression, which had been supposed formore than a century, and which has been measured by thelaborious efforts of MM. Parrot and Engelhardt, may beranked among the most surprising geognostical phenomena.The exact determination of the mean annual barometric heightof the city of Orenburg, which we owe to MM. Hoffmann andHelmerssen; a levelling (nivellement par station?) made bythe aid of the barometer, by the same observers, from Orenburgto Gourief, the eastern port of the Caspian Sea; correspondingmeasures taken during several months in these two places; and,lastly, observations recently made by us at Astracan and at themouth of the Volga, corresponding at once to Sarepta, Orenburg,Cazan, and Moscow, will serve, when all the data are broughttogether and rigorously calculated, to verify the absolute heightof this internal basin. On the northern side of the Caspian Sea, every thing appearsto indicate at the present day a progressive diminution of thelevel of the waters; but without giving too much credit to thereport of Hanway (an old English traveller, of otherwise re-spectable character), about the periodical risings and fallings, wecannot deny the encroachments of the Caspian Sea near the an-cient city of Terek (perhaps the old town of Terek or Old Terek) and to the south of the mouth of the Cyrus, where scatteredtrunks of trees, the remains of a forest, are seen always inun-dated. The islet of Pogorelaia Plita, on the contrary, seems tobe progressively extending and rising above the waves, which, |110| not many years ago covered it, previous to the flames whichwere perceived by navigators at a distance. To solve in a satisfactory manner the great problems relativeto the depression, which is perhaps variable, of the level of thewaters, and of that of the continental basin of the Caspian Sea,it were desirable that there should be traced a soundings line around this basin, in the plains of Sarepta, Ouralsk, and Oren-burg, by uniting the points which are precisely at the level ofthe Baltic and Black Seas; that it should be determined bymarks placed on the coasts all round the Caspian Sea (like themarks placed nearly a century ago on the coasts of Sweden, bythe directions of the Stockholm Academy), whether there be ageneral or partial, a continuous or periodical, fall of the waters,or whether (as the great geologist M. Leopold de Buch sup-poses in respect to Scandinavia) a part of the neighbouring landis elevated or depressed by volcanic causes acting at immensedepths in the interior of the globe. The mountainous isthmusof Caucasus, partly composed of trachyte and other rocks,which undoubtedly owe their origin to volcanic fires, marginsthe Caspian Sea to the west, while it is surrounded to the eastby tertiary and secondary formations, which extend towardsthose countries of ancient celebrity, for the knowledge of whichEurope is indebted to the important work of Baron Meyen-dorf. In these general views, which I submit to your enlightenedconsideration, I have attempted to point out some of the advan-tages which the physical history of the globe might derive fromthe position and extent of this empire. I have exposed theviews which vividly presented themselves to me, in sight of theregions from which I have just returned. It has appeared tome more suitable to render a public testimony of approbation tothose who, under the auspices of the government, have pursuedthe same career as myself, and to direct the attention to whatremains to be done for the advancement of science, and for theglory of your country, than to speak of my own efforts, andcompress within a narrow compass the results of observationswhich have still to be compared with the great mass of partialdata which you have collected. I have alluded in this discourse to the extent of country |111| which separates the line of no magnetic variation, to the east ofLake Baikal from the basin of the Caspian Sea, the valleys ofthe Cyrus, and the frozen summits of Caneasus. At thesenames the mind involuntarily reverts to that recent struggle, inwhich the moderation of the conqueror has increased the gloryof his arms, which has opened up new paths to commerce, andhas ensured the deliverance of Greece, the long abandonedcradle of the civilization of our ancestors. But it is not in thispeaceful assembly that I ought to celebrate the glory of arms.The august monarch, who has deigned to call me to this coun-try, and to smile upon my labours, presents himself to my ima-gination as a peace-making genius. Vivifying by his exampleall that is true, great, and generous, he has delighted, since thedawn of his reign, in protecting the study of the sciences whichnourish and strengthen the understanding, and that of litera-ture and the arts, which embellish life, and add to the comfortof society.