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mersen, the inspector of the establishment, who whether he be viewed as a physical geographer, a geologist, or as a writer, has rendered most valuable service to Russia by his luminous and attractive descriptions of the structure and outline of various parts of the empire, including the most remote tracts. I beg also to refer you to the five published volumes of the School of Mines, as works containing much excellent matter, and highly creditable both to the government which promoted their publication, and to the officers whose memoirs they contain.

In the mean time, besides what is doing on the Neva, a periodical work on Russia has appeared at Berlin under the title of Archiv für Wissenschaftliche Kunde von Russland, by the enterprising traveller A. Erman, of which two parts are published. Together with various memoirs on physical geography, history, language, antiquities, and physics, the editor has added a sketch of the recent advances in the geology of Russia, and illustrates his views by the publication of a small outline map of the empire. In the estimate of the geological steps in Russia which various labourers have accomplished, I rejoice to see the name of our countryman Strangways placed where it ought to be, as the first who applied the methods of modern practical geology to that empire, by the publication of his general map in the year 1822. Nevertheless it is too certain, as M. de Verneuil and myself informed you last year, that when we first visited St. Petersburgh in 1840, this map, though published in our Transactions, was, as far as we could ascertain, unknown to the men of science in that country. In the first memoir on Russia, we specially directed your attention to the merits of Strangways, and we shall have ample opportunities hereafter of reverting to them. What I have now to observe in reference to the map of M. Erman is, that in his account of it, the special researches and the new points which my friend M. de Verneuil and myself established, are merged with what I must consider the copies of our views. The source whence the chief materials were obtained, is sufficiently proved indeed by the words "Silurische und Devonische Schichten» engrav

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ed upon the map, particularly when coupled with the fact, that M. de Verneuil, Count Keyserling, and myself are the only geologists who have traced the older groups to the White Sea, aided materially, as we have previously acknowledged, in a part of that region, by the Baron A. de Meyendorf, and for a short time by Professor Blasius. The original observations which we made were inserted by myself on a map which was shown at Moscow and St. Petersburgh in August, and to the British Association at Glasgow, in September 1840. On this map the range of the great bands of Silurian, Devo ́nian, and Carboniferous rocks from St. Petersburgh and Mosców to the White Sea, with a vast basin of red deposits in the governments of Vologda and the Middle Volga, were laid down, I assert, for the first time, and thus established the essentially distinguishing features of subdivision of the North of Russia.

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After the application of this basis, Colonel Helmersen, to whom I have alluded, put together in the ensuing winter a small general map of Russia in Europe, in which he inserted the result of the labours of M. de Verneuil, the Baron A. de Meyendorf, Count Keyserling, Professor Blasius, and myself, acknowledging our services as well as those of all previous observers. The map of M. Erman which followed, was prepared by the Baron A. de Meyendorf and his companions, who extended the knowledge which they acquired with M. de Verneuil and myself to some of the central and southern parts of Russia, and thus marked a new step in the development of the structure of the empire. Since that time, the extended geological researches of the expedition in which my friends M. de Verneuil and Count Keyserling were associated with me, aided by Lieut. Koksharof, and an independent survey of Colonel Helmersen, have thrown a new light over the structure of various parts of the central, eastern, and southern regions, and have rendered necessary considerable changes in all previous maps. As a mere prelude, therefore, to what may hereafter appear, I have, with the aid of my associates, coloured a small general sketch-map of the empire, including the Ural chain, which as it will shortly appear before you

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in a published form, I only mention in this place to assure you that it differs very essentially from all previous) mapst....; } Whilst on the topic of Russia, I will now state, that if on account of the preparation of this discourse and other official duties I had not been greatly occupied, I might before now have spresented to you some of the results of the second visit to that country In the mean time, however, my colleagues, Mu de Verneuil and Count Keyserling, have been sedulously comparing our collections of fossils, and reducing a vast nume ber of barometrical observations, whilst with their cooperation I have already completed a general: table of superpositions of Russian deposits, which, with a section across Russia, and the map above alluded to, are now nearly ready for publication. My brother geologists will feel that a general table of classification ought to be the finishing stroke in illustration of any country previously little known, and respecting which so much confusion prevailed! We offer it, however, in the persuasion that its leading divisions will be supported by the evidences hereafter to be brought forward, and we simply put forth this table (which was drawn up at Moscow after our second journey) to convey to the cultivators of our science the chief results of our inquiries, and to place them upon record as bearing date from September 1841. goma.

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Among these results will now merely allude to the first announcement of some of them, in a letter of the above date, addressed to Dr. Fischer de Waldheim at Moscow in which the two points most dwelt upon were the discovery of a large central dome or axis of Devonian rocks, which separates Russia in Europe into two great north and south basins of very dissimilar characters; and the classification of certain cupriferous deposits of sand, marl, limestone, &c. under the term of the Permian system. As the explanation of the reasons which ted to the suggestion of this name will be shortly offered to you in full detail, I should not now occupy your time by alluding to it, had not the mention of the word already called forth from M. A. Erman' the remark, that these deposits have been long known to other observers. I admit that they were mineralogically known, but I deny that, their geological

position had been determined by any competent geologist previous to the researches of myself and friends; and I contend that there was no Russian formation, concerning whose age so many contradictory opinions had been expressed. As a proof of this, I may state that the illustrious Humboldt himself assured me in the spring of last year, that it was the great point to which he hoped our labours would be directed. So strongly indeed was the difficulty of placing these strata in their correct geological horizon felt by Russian observers, that Major Wangenheim von Qualen, who had long and patiently studied them in situ, and Dr. Fischer, who had ably described many of their fossil contents, at once abandoned the field to my associates and myself, and put us in possession of all their knowledge, avowing their inability to arrive at a satisfactory geological conclusion. was, therefore, surprised to read the premature criticism of M. A. Erman, the more so, as that author has called a large portion of the great limestone of Russia, Jurassic, which we have ascertained to be carboniferous, and to form the support of the hitherto anomalous system, which we shall endeavour to place in parallel with its equivalents in Germany and the British Isles, by showing its place in the order of superposition, and by describing the fauna and flora by which it is characterized as a distinct type intermediate between the Carboniferous and Triassic sys

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I cannot but advise all considering men whose lives are attended with such extraordinary incidents as mine, or even though not so extraordinary, not to slight such secret intimations of Providence, let them come from what invisible intelligence they will. That, I shall not discuss: but certainly they are a proof of the converse of spirits, and a secret communication between those "embodied and those unembodied, and such a proof as can never be withstood.-ROBINSON CRUSOR.

That such hints and notices are given us I believe few that have made any observations of things can deny that they are certain discoveries of an invisible world, and a converse of spirits we cannot doubt; and if the tendency of them be to warn us of danger, why should we not suppose they are from some friendly agent (whether supreme, or inferior and subordinate, is not the question), and that they are given for qur good?-IBD,

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It has been a favourite notion with enthusiasts and visionaries of various denominations, and in all ages, that we have an intimate intercourse with the invisible world that we are guided in wholesome or prejudicial courses, and urged to virtuous or sinful actions, by the promptings of good and evil spirits. Defoe, from whom I have taken my mottoes, evidently inclined to this belief his earnest repetition of the argument shows that he personally entertained the sentiments on the subject which he has attributed to his hero. It is true that the quotations have reference only to benevolent ministerings; but the author does not therefore repudiate an infernal agency. On the contrary, Crusoe readily ascribes to the Devil the mysterious foot-print on the sand, howbeit the impression is of a man's naked sole, instead of the old traditional hoof. In fact, to

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