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Antiqua
Antiqua; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung; Fußnoten mit Asterisken; Schmuck: Initialen, Kapitälchen.
Gentlemen,
If,
on this occasion, when there is manifested a noble ardour
for
honouring the labours of human intellect, I venture to crave
your
indulgence, I do so only in discharging a duty which you
have imposed upon
me. On returning to my native country,
after traversing the icy ridges of
the Cordilleras, and the great
forests 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 its
good will, the honour of being associated with it. I still love
to turn my thoughts toward the period of my life when the
same eloquent voice which you have heard at the opening of
this meeting,
called me into the midst of you, and, by ingenious
fictions, almost
persuaded me that I had merited the palm which
you conferred upon me. How
far was I then from thinking
that I should not sit at a meeting over which
you, Sir
side, until I had returned from the banks of
the Irtisch, the
confines 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 New
Grenada—the porphyry and trachyte formations of Mexico and
Altai—the savannas of the Orinoco, and the steppes of South-
ern
Siberia, which offer a vast field to the peaceful conquests of
agriculture, and to those arts which, while they add to the
riches 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 of
the Obi and
the River of Amazons. In the long interval be-
tween my two journeys, the
physical sciences, and especially
geognosy, chemistry, and the
electro-magnetic theory, have
most say new organs, have been invented to bring man into
more 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 modern
travellers can
submit to their observations, in a brief period of
time, a larger portion
of the earth’s surface, it is to the improve-
ments effected in the
mathematical and physical sciences, to the
precision of our instruments,
the perfection of our methods, and
the art of grouping facts and rising to
general considerations,
that they owe the advantages which they possess.
The traveller
applies to use what, through the beneficial influence of
societies,
and the studies of sedentary life, has been prepared in the
silence
of the cabinet. To judge with equity and justice the merit of
travellers of different times, we must be acquainted with the
degree of development which practical astronomy, geognosy,
meteorology, and descriptive natural history, had simultaneously
acquired. It is thus that the degree of culture of the great do-
main of
the sciences must be reflected in the traveller who would
raise himself to
the level of his times; and, in this manner,
travels undertaken for the
extension of the physical knowledge
of the globe, must at different ages
present an individual cha-
racter—the physiognomy of a given epoch.
They exhibit a
picture of the state of cultivation through which the
sciences
have progressively passed.
In thus tracing the duties of these who have gone through
the
same career as myself, and whose example has often re-
kindled my ardour in
moments of difficulty, I have pointed out
the 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, undertaken
by the
order of a magnanimous monarch, powerfully aided by
the knowledge of two
preciated, MM. Ehrenberg and Rose,
I might here confine my-
self to laying before you the homage of my lively
and respectful
gratitude;—I might solicit him who, young as he
still is, has
ventured 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
aware, Gentlemen, that the charm of eloquence, were it even in
accordance with the vivacity of feeling, is not sufficient in this
assembly. You have been charged in this vast empire with the
grand and noble mission of giving a general impulse to the cul-
tivation
of science and literature—of encouraging the labours
which are in
harmony with the present state of human know-
ledge—of vivifying and
enlarging the mind in the domain of
the higher mathematics, the physical
history of the globe, and
the history of the nations as illustrated by the
monuments of
different ages. Your view is directed forwards to the
career
which remains to be run, and the tribute of gratitude which
I offer you—the only tribute worthy of your Institution—is
the solemn engagement by which I now bind myself to remain
faithful to the cultivation of the sciences to the last moment of
an
already advanced career, to explore nature unceasingly, and
to pursue a
course which has been traced by you and your il-
lustrious
predecessors.
This community of action in the higher studies, the aid which
the
different branches of human acquirement lend to each other,
and the
efforts that have been made at the same time in the two
continents, and in
the wide expanse of the seas, have impressed a
rapid movement upon the
physical sciences, as, after ages of
barbarism, the simultaneousness of
efforts similarly affected the
progress of reason. Happy the country whose
government ac-
cords an august protection to literature and the arts, which
do not
merely delight the imagination of man, but also increase his in-
tellectual power and enlarge his conceptions;—to the physical
sciences 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 determine
by
accurate measurements the nature of its configuration! In
here recalling
to mind a small part of what has been done in
the year now about to close,
I am rendering to the Prince a
heritage which, by its very simplicity,
cannot be displeasing to
him.
While MM. Rose and Ehrenberg and myself have, between
the Ural,
the Altai, and the Caspian Sea, examined the geogno-
depressions, indicated by barometrical measurements—the
varia-
tions of the earth’s magnetism in different latitudes
(especially
the augmentations of the inclination and intensity of the
mag-
netic forces)—the temperature of the interior of the
globe—the
state of humidity of the atmosphere, by means of a
psychrome-
tric instrument, which had not previously been employed on
a
long journey—and, lastly, the astronomical position of some
places, 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 the
Academy him whose valuable ideas respecting the hororary va-
riations of the magnetic needle we have just received, and
to whom the sciences are indebted (along with ingenious and
delicate researches in crystallography) for the discovery of the
influence 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 human
race, in the great shipwreck of nations and tongues, so many
different tribes have found refuge. To the name of this travel-
ler, our learned associate, is joined, by similarity of labours, the
name of the philosopher who, with a noble perseverance, has
struggled on the ridges of Ararat, regarded as the classic soil of
the earliest and most venerable recollections of history, with the
obstacles which the depth and softness of the eternal snows pre-
sented to him. I am almost afraid of wounding the modesty of
the 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 part
of the glory of which two
nations at once may be proud), in the
Uralian 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. The
beautiful Flora of the Altai has already enriched the botanical
has risen, as by enchantment, thanks to the indefatigable and
en-
lightened zeal of its director, to the rank of the first botanical
gardens of Europe. The scientific world waits with impatience
the publication of the Flora of the Altai, of which Dr Bunge
himself, in the neighbourhood of Zmeinogorsk, shewed my friend
M.
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 Ural
has
been confided to two young naturalists, MM. Hoffmann and
Helmerssen, one
of whom was the first who gave an accurate
account of the volcanoes of the
South Sea. This choice is due
to 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 gratitude
not to be effaced. MM. Helmerssen and Hoffmann, pupils of
the celebrated school of Dorpat, have studied for two years
with success the different ramifications of the Ural Mountains,
from the
great Taganai, and the granites of Iremel, to beyond
the plain of
Gouberlinsk, which is connected, more to the south,
with the Mougodjares
Monntains, and to the east between Lake
Aral 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 this
arid yet inhabited country. We had the great satisfaction of
being 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 only
ones that have as
yet been discovered in the long chain of the
Ural which separates Europe
and Asia, which presents the most
abundant eruptions of metals on its
eastern slope, and which
contains, in veins or in alluvium, gold, platina,
osmiuret of iri-
dium, diamonds, discovered by Count Polier in alluvia to
the
west 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 and
Brasil.
I might extend the list of important labours performed in the
metrical observations of the west, which, by the union of the
la-
bours of Generals Schubert and Tenner, and of M. Struve, the
great astronomer of Dorpat, will elucidate the figure of the
Earth on a great scale;—of the geological constitution of Lake
Raikal, 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 adventurous
that 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,
through
the co-operation of three excellent naturalists, Dr Mertens,
Ba-
ron Kittliz, and M. Postels, has been productive of important
results in Astronomy, Physica, Botany and Anatomy.
I have undertaken to point out this community of efforts by
which
several portions of the empire have been explored, by the
aid of modern
science, by that of new instruments, and new
methods, founded upon the
analogy of facts formerly unknown.
It is also by a community of interests
that, having once more
ventured 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 is
a pleasant duty to perform in a strange land, in the midst of
the assembly which listens to me) the intellectual richness of a
nation, the labours of those useful men, disinterested in their
devotion to science, who traverse their country, or, in solitude,
prepare by study, by calculation and experiment, the discoveries
of future generations.
If, as we have proved by recent examples, the vast extent of
the
Russian Empire, which surpasses that of the visible part of
the moon,
requires the concurrence of numerous observers, this
very extent also
presents advantages of another kind, which
have long been known to you,
Gentlemen, but which, in their
relation to the present state of our
knowledge of the physical
history of the earth, do not appear to me to
have been suffi-
ciently appreciated; I would not speak of that immense
scale,
shores of eastern Asia and Russian America, on which the po-
sition and formation of rocks of all ages may be studied, within
the
limits of the same empire; the remains of those pelagic ani-
mals which the
ancient revolutions of our planet have buried
im the bowels of the earth;
the gigantic bones of land quadru-
peds now lost, or whose kindred species
live only in the tropical
regions;—I would not draw the attention
of this assembly to
the aids which the geography of plants and animals (a
science
only commencing its existence) will one day derive from a
more
profound specific knowledge of the climatic distribution of or-
ganized beings, from the happy regions of the Chersonesus and
Mingrelia, from the frontiers of Persia and Asia Minor, to the
melancholy shores of the Frozen Ocean;—I prefer confining
myself
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 of
nature.
If, in the school of Alexandria, and at the splendid epoch of
the
Arabians (the first masters in the art of observing and in-
terrogating
nature by means of experiment), the instruments
which we owe to the great
age of Galileo, Huygens and Fer-
mat, had been known, we should now know,
by comparative
observations, if the height of the atmosphere, the
qualitity of
water which it contains and precipitates, and the mean
tempe-
rature of places, have diminished in the course of ages; we
should know the secular changes of the electro-magnetic charge
of our planet, and the modifications which the temperature of
the different strata of the globe, increasing in the ratio of the
depth, may have undergone, whether through an augmentation
of radiation, or from internal volcanic motions; lastly we
should know
the variations of the level of the ocean, the partial
disturbances 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 these
data, that had accumulated through ages, as he has
recently
solved with success one of the most difficult problems of
the
propagation of vibrations.
Unfortunately, in the physical sciences, the civilisation of
Europe did not commence at so early a period. We are, as the
priests of Sais said of the Hellenes, a new people. The almost
simultaneous invention of those organs by which we are brought
into 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 infinitesimal
calculus,—hardly dates thirty lustrums back. In this conflict of
the 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 periodical
change is determined with so much the more precision, the
greater the interval between the extreme observations.
It is the duty of the scientific bodies which are continually
forming and renovating themselves,—the academies, the univer-
sities, the many learned societies scattered over Europe, in the
two Americas, at the southern extremity of Africa, in India, and
even in New Holland, which, although but of late so wild, al-
ready possesses an observatory,—to observe, to measure, and, as
it 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 for
eighteen years.
The western nations have carried into the different parts of
the
world those forms of civilization, that development of the
human
intellect, whose origin ascends to the epoch of the intel-
lectual
greatness of the Greeks, and to the gentle influence of
Christianity.
Divided in languages and manners, and in politi-
cal and religious
institutions, the enlightened nations form in
our days but a single family
(and this is one of the most beauti-
ful results of modern civilization),
when the object in view is
the 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
globe, and which I have pointed out above, may, without doubt,
become the object of simultaneous researches; but the immense
extent 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. An
impulse 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 to
your notice, three objects which are not (as was once said
under
a 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 the
highest 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 of
the earth’s magnetism in declination,
inclination, and intensity
of forces, for the declination of the needle in
different seas, the
appreciation of which is more exclusively required by
mariners,
is intimately connected in theory with two other elements,
the
inclination and the intensity measured by oscillations. At no
former period did the knowledge of the variations of the terres-
trial magnetism make so rapid advances as within the last thirty
years. The angles which the needle forms with the vertical and
the meridian of the place,—the intensity of forces, of which I
have
had the good fortune to ascertain the increase from the equator
to 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 laborious
researches. The great discoveries of Oerstedt, Arago, Ampere,
Seebeck, Morichini, and Mrs Somerville, have revealed to us
the mutual relations of magnetism with electricity, heat and solar
light. There are only three metals, Iron, Nickel, and Cobalt,
that
become magnetic. The surprising phenomenon of rotatory
magnetism, which my
illustrious friend M. Arago first made
torily susceptible of electro-magnetic actions. The Russian
empire is the only country on earth traversed by two lines with-
out declination, or along which the needle is directed towards
the poles of the earth. One of these two lines, whose position
and periodical motion of translation from east to west, are the
principal elements of a future theory of the terrestrial magnetism,
passes, according to the last researches of MM. Hansteen and
Erman, between Mourom and Nijni-Novogorod; the second,
some degrees to
the east of Irkoutsk between Parchnikaia and
Jarbinsk. Their prolongation
northwards, and the rapidity of
their motion westward, are not yet known.
The physics of the
globe 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
inclination
and 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 country
in a single direction, and
at a single period. There is required
a 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,
which
traverses 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 sea
and on
land, with the aid of the instruments of Borda, Bessel,
and Gambey, we may
easily be persuaded that Russia, by its
position, is capable of forwarding
the theory of magnetism in a
very great degree, in the space of twenty
years. In speaking
of these matters, I am only, gentlemen, in a manner,
the inter-
preter of your desires. The manner in which you received the
request which I addressed to you, seven months ago, relative to
the correspondent observations of horary variations made at
Paris, at Berlin, in a mine at Freyberg, and at Cazan, by the
learned
and laborious astronomer M. Simonoff, has proved that
the Imperial Academy
will worthily second the other academies
city of all the magnetic phenomena.
If the resolution of the problem which I have just pointed
out,
is equally important for the physical history of our planet
and the
improvement of the art of navigation, the second object
which I have to
lay before you, and for which the extent of the
empire 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 with
the destruction of the forests and the diminution of the
water of
lakes and rivers. The first and noblest object of science re-
sides undoubtedly in themselves, in the enlargement of the
sphere of ideas, and of the intellectual power of man. It is not
in the
bosom of an academy like yours, under the monarch who
regulates the
destinies of the empire, that the research of great
physical truths
requies the support of a material and external
interest, of an immediate
application to the wants of social
life: but when the sciences, without
deviating from their noble
primary object, are capable of exercising a
direct influence upon
agriculture 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 the
increase of territorial riches.
A country which extends over more than 135 degrees of
longitude,
from the happy zone of the olive to the climates in
which the ground is
only covered with lichens, is more than any
other capable of advancing the
study of the atmosphere, the
knowledge of the mean temperatures of the
year, and, what is
much more important for the cycle of vegetation, that
of the
distribution of the annual heat among the different seasons.
Add to these data for obtaining a group of facts intimately
connected with each other, the variable pressure of the air, and
the
relation of this pressure to the predominant winds and the
temperature,
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 regularity
in its progress), the hygrometric state
of the air, and the annual
quantity of rain, which it is of so much
importance to the
agriculturist to know. When the varied inflections of
the
rate observations, and continued at least five years, in
European
Russia and Siberia; when they shall have been prolonged to
the western coasts of America, where an excellent navigator
Captain 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 the
advantages afforded by the
great extent of its possessions from
the 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
each
other, have been distributed over a great number of places, the
selection of which has been submitted to minute discussion,
and the annual results, reduced to a small number of figures, are
published by a central committee, which watches over the uni-
formity of
the observations and calculations. I have already
pointed out in a memoir,
in which I have discussed the general
causes upon which the differences of
climate in the same lati-
tude depend, on how great a scale this beautiful
example of the
United States might be followed in the Russian Empire
Journal.
We are happily far removed from the period when philoso-
phers
thought they knew the calimate of a place, when they
knew the extremes of
temperature attained by the thermome-
ter in winter and summer. A uniform
method, founded upon
the choice of hours, and up to the level of our
recently acquir-
ed knowledge of the true means of the days, months, and
whole
year, will replace the old and defective methods. By this in-
vestigation, various prejudices respecting the selection of objects
of cultivation, the possibility of planting the vine, the mulberry,
the chesnut, or the oak, will disappear in certain provinces of
the empire. To extend it to the most remote parts, we may
reckon upon the enlightened co-operation of many well-educated
young
officers, with whom the Corps des Mines is honoured,
that of physicians
animated by zeal for the physical sciences,
Canals, Bridges, and Roads, in which mathematical studies of a
high order give rise to a kind of instinctive taste for order and
precision.
Along with the two objects of research which we have just
examined in their relation to the extent of the empire (the earth’s
magnetism and the study of the atmosphere, which leads at the
same time, by the aid of the mean heights of the barometer, to
the improved knowledge of the configuration of the ground), I
would mention, in concluding, a third kind of inquiry of a more
local interest, although connected with the great questions of
physical geography. A considerable part of the earth’s surface
around the Caspian Sea, is inferior to the level of the Black Sea
and the Baltic. This depression, which had been supposed for
more than a century, and which has been measured by the
laborious
efforts of MM. Parrot and Engelhardt, may be
ranked among the most
surprising geognostical phenomena.
The exact determination of the mean
annual barometric height
of the city of Orenburg, which we owe to MM.
Hoffmann and
Helmerssen; a levelling (nivellement par
station?) made by
the aid of the barometer, by the same observers,
from Orenburg
to Gourief, the eastern port of the Caspian Sea;
corresponding
measures taken during several months in these two places;
and,
lastly, observations recently made by us at Astracan and at the
mouth of the Volga, corresponding at once to Sarepta, Orenburg,
Cazan, and Moscow, will serve, when all the data are brought
together and rigorously calculated, to verify the absolute height
of
this internal basin.
On the northern side of the Caspian Sea, every thing appears
to indicate at the present day a progressive diminution of the
level of the waters; but without giving too much credit to the
report of Hanway (an old English traveller, of otherwise re-
spectable character), about the periodical risings and fallings, we
cannot 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 scattered
trunks of trees, the remains of a forest, are seen always inun-
dated. The islet of Pogorelaia Plita, on the contrary, seems to
be progressively extending and rising above the waves, which,
were perceived by navigators at a distance.
To solve in a satisfactory manner the great problems relative
to the depression, which is perhaps variable, of the level of the
waters, 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 of
the Baltic and Black Seas; that it should be determined by
marks placed on the coasts all round the Caspian Sea (like the
marks placed nearly a century ago on the coasts of Sweden, by
the directions of the Stockholm Academy), whether there be a
general 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 land
is elevated or depressed by volcanic causes acting at immense
depths in the interior of the globe. The mountainous isthmus
of Caucasus, partly composed of trachyte and other rocks,
which undoubtedly owe their origin to volcanic fires, margins
the Caspian Sea to the west, while it is surrounded to the east
by tertiary and secondary formations, which extend towards
those countries of ancient celebrity, for the knowledge of which
Europe is indebted to the important work of Baron Meyen-
dorf.
In these general views, which I submit to your enlightened
consideration, I have attempted to point out some of the advan-
tages which the physical history of the globe might derive from
the position and extent of this empire. I have exposed the
views which vividly presented themselves to me, in sight of the
regions from which I have just returned. It has appeared to
me more suitable to render a public testimony of approbation to
those who, under the auspices of the government, have pursued
the same career as myself, and to direct the attention to what
remains to be done for the advancement of science, and for the
glory of your country, than to speak of my own efforts, and
compress within a narrow compass the results of observations
which have still to be compared with the great mass of partial
data which you have collected.
I have alluded in this discourse to the extent of country
Lake Baikal from the basin of the Caspian Sea, the valleys of
the Cyrus, and the frozen summits of Caneasus. At these
names the mind involuntarily reverts to that recent struggle, in
which
the moderation of the conqueror has increased the glory
of his arms, which
has opened up new paths to commerce, and
has ensured the deliverance of
Greece, the long abandoned
cradle of the civilization of our ancestors.
But it is not in this
peaceful 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 example
all that is true, great, and generous, he has delighted, since the
dawn
of his reign, in protecting the study of the sciences which
nourish and
strengthen the understanding, and that of litera-
ture and the arts, which
embellish life, and add to the comfort
of society.