Abstract
AT a recent meeting of the French Geographical Society, M. M. Venukoff read a short paper on the learned Societies of Russia. Besides the Geographical Society, the Army Staff, the Academy of Sciences, and other Government institutions, there are in Russia several learned bodies engaged in the exploration of those countries which are still but little known. Though many of the explorers do not go for geographical purposes properly so called, yet these non-geographical explorers frequently obtain results of the greatest interest to geography. M. M. Venukoff is a member of many of these Societies, and at the outset of his paper he proceeds to name some of his colleagues who have in recent years rendered great service to geography; amongst the members of the Naturalist Society of St. Petersburg, MM. Korotneff, Nicolsky, Lidsky, Yaschenko, and Kouznétoff. The first-named has travelled in the Malay Archipelago, where he has studied chiefly the invertebrate animals, but has at the same time made scientific observations of every kind. In the month of June 1887, he visited the country around Krakatão, where already several little hamlets have sprung up on the site of the town of Anjer, which was destroyed by an earthquake in 1883. These poor huts were surrounded by a luxurious vegetation, while the neighbouring portions of the sea were still covered with pumice-stone and altogether deserted by fish. At Billiton Island the traveller met the interesting tribe of Secasses, the fishermen of their state, who, with rare exceptions, inhabit floating-houses—that is, their junks—and even those among them who possess huts build them on the sea on piles, and never on terra firma. They are distinguishable from the Malays by their tall figure, their curly hair, and projecting cheek-bones; finally, strange to say, they almost all stammer. They are a very honest race, gentle, kind, joyous, and hospitable, and it is said that robbery is unknown among them. M. Korotneff describes the tides of the Sunda Sea, which are very complicated, and several other interesting phenomena. M. Venukoff then passes to M. Nicolsky, a famous Russian zoologist, who has pursued his researches in Lake Balkash. He assigns as the cause for the remarkable difference between the fish fauna: of the two districts of Tchui and Ele that the basin of Lake Balkash is separated from the Tchui valley by plateaux and mountains of a very ancient formation. Besides, Balkash is 280 metres above the sea-level, the Sea of Aral is scarcely 50 metres, and the height of the plateaux between Balkash and Tchui is 370 metres at least, and so it is difficult to see how the two great lakes were formerly part of one sea. Balkash, Sassyk-Kul, Ala-Kul, and even Ebi-Nor probably formed, and within the modern epochs, a single vast basin of fresh or slightly brackish water, for their fish fauna is identical with that of our days. In spite of its great extent and its latitude, which is the same as that of Bordeaux and Venice, Lake Balkash freezes every year from the month of November up to the middle of April, and the ice sometimes is as thick as 80 centimetres. A fact worthy of observation is that the steppes which surround the lake vary very much according to their position. Those on the north-west are clayey, and completely bare during the summer, and covered with pools in the spring; those on the south-east are formed of beds of sand, in which there are no pools, but where water is to be found below a certain depth. Thus the desert in the latter case is not so dry as it is to the north and to the west. From the point of view of a zoologist, M. Nicolsky finds that the north and west of Lake Balkash are marked by the presence of jerboas and of larks, whilst at the south of the lake there are numerous reptiles and tortoises; some hares and mice dwell there also, but there are no birds. M. Venukoff does not follow M. Nicolsky into the remainder of his report, as it deals chiefly with the natural sciences; but he remarks that M. Nicolsky shows all the qualities of Humboldt and Mr. Wallace—abundance of well-established facts, and great breadth of view in explaining them. M. Lidsky travelled in Karateghin and in part of Bokhara. Having arrived in the month of June at Schahrisiabz, M. Lidsky wished to journey to Hissar by the Sangardak Hill, but this being prevented by the snows, he was forced to make a detour and enter the valley of the Sourkhan by another route. From this vast prairies stretch away as far as the Oxus, inhabited not by men, but by jackals, for the waters of the Sourkhan flood the plain each year. In rising from this valley, he soon arrived at Garma, and then at Karatag, the summer residence of the Bey of Garma, which is usually hidden from the heat and the fevers which prevail in Garma in the hot season. There, and at Fezabad, M. Lidsky saw fish the skin of which was of exactly the same shade as the water which holds them, and which abounds in clayey soils—that is of a red colour. Beyond Fezabad the traveller pushed into the high valley of Dachti-Bidona, which is really a plateau separating the basin of the Sourkhab from that of the Kiafirningm. M. Lidsky describes Karateghin, which is 150 kilometres in length and 50 in breadth, as a fertile country in its lower parts, and thickly covered with forests in the mountainous regions. Unfortunately this oasis is separated from all the neighbouring countries by high peaks, so that the journey from Garma to Samarkand, for example, passes over Mount Pakchif, which is at least 3850 metres above the sea-level. The cold is so great at the top of the mountain that beasts of burden and even men are frequently overcome by it; travellers are often compelled to throw before them long strips of felt, on which they walk-a singular and a very slow and painful mode of progression. In 1877, M. Yaschenko made a journey in Russian Lapland, between Kola and Kandalaschka. According to him the lakes of this region belong to the basin of the White Sea or to that of the Arctic Ocean, and have identical fauna; but the ierrestrial animals are not everywhere the same. There are places where bears abound; there are others where the principal enemy of man is the glutton. In latter years the inhabitants have remarked that the reindeer are changing their habits, and are beginning to prefer the forests to the tundras, or spaces covered with lichens, which make their favourite food. The reason of this change is to seek a more favourable shelter from the hunters; in the open, whole herds may be taken, but in the forest it is only possible to hunt one or two at a time. M. Kouznétoff has pursued zoological and physical geography researches on the Sea of Azov. This little basin, of which the length does not exceed 350 kilometres, and its breadth 170 kilometres, and its depth scarcely 14 metres, abounds in fish, and attracts continually to its shores crowds of fishermen. Its water is brackish rather than salt, for its percentage of salt is only 1.19, while that of the Black Sea is 1.75, and the Mediterranean more than 2.3 per cent.; and consequently the real sea-fish are not to be found in the Sea of Azov. Gourmets, however, would find that the sturgeon is very numerous here, and has delicious flesh. We can see by this short account that the study of geography is making great strides in Russia. Three years ago, General Tillo, in drawing up his magnetic charts of Eastern Europe, discovered certain anomalies in the distribution of the magnetic elements around Koursk and Kharkov. During the summer of 1887, M. Piltchikoff, Professor at Kharkov, made inquiries into these anomalies, and he has just published a book in which the theory of terrestrial magnetism started by Gauss is developed.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Learned Societies in Russia . Nature 39, 67–68 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/039067a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/039067a0