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LITERARY NEWS FROM RUSSIA.

Dr Guthrie

SIR, To the Editor of the Bee.

You may perhaps not be displeased to insert a little

of our arctic news in your Bee, in that case it is pofsible we may occasionally supply you with a few articles.

Mr Heland, the Swedish directeur œconomique at Tornea, on the arctic circle, who has, for a number of years, made careful and accurate observations on the tides, atmosphere, magnetic needle, &c. proposes to leave his house and small estate to a succefsion of observators, who will be obliged, in lieu of rent, to continue his observations, and transmit the result to to the Academy of Sciences, who are left executors of this singular but liberal will. The baron Turbé, the Sardinian envoy at this court, from whom I had this information, says, that; on a tour he made some time ago to these northern regions, he found in every room of Mr Heland's house, a sort of wooden thermo- meter, suspended horizontally like a vane of a fhip, within a few inches of the ceiling, consisting of a long narrow thin slip of fir, which, by bending to one side or other, marked changes of the atmosphere on a graduated semicircle, painted on the ceiling immediately above it. I hinted to the baron that it was probably rather a hygrometer, of the nature of the mahogany one suggested by Dr Franklin in the second volume of the American Philosophical Transactions, although it would be difficult I think to account for the semicircular motion of the fir instru

ment on the doctor's principle. I likewise suggested that it might be hung by a twisted catgut; but was assured that it was firmly held in a slit piece of iron or nail, driven into the ceiling, and that it pointed out the temperature, not the humidity of the atmosphere; and that he did not remark any other kind of thermometer in the whole house.

If any of your correspondents are acquainted with this instrument, they will probably be so kind as to give some description of it, until we can get farther information upon what promises to be of such general use, from its cheapnefs and simple construction, if it fhould be found to indicate changes in the atmos-phere with any degree of exactnefs.

Code, the Japanese merchant mentioned by Cox and Lisippe, the French consul, in his journey from Kamtchatka, was brought down last winter by counsellor Laxmann, his protector and friend, inspector of the Siberian fofsils, who resides at Irkutsk, and remained with us a few months. I had frequently an opportunity of seeing him, both at the lodgings of that able mineralogist, and at the house of our celebrated naturalist, Dr Pallas. He is a little, tight, well made man, with lank black hair, tied behind, a Spanishcomplexion, and quick black eyes. His drefs was European in Petersburgh; as what he could have saved from the wreck of his fhip must long ago have been worn out. We were all surprised at the degree of knowledge he pofsefsed, considering his line of life and country; for example, in the hot house of my friend' Pallas, he pointed out to us the plants that were natives of his island; and I found him always employed

at home (Mr Laxmann's) in making out charts of his country, particularly of the district from which he sailed,

These were much in the stile of the Chinese*. He had saved from the wreck a couple of books; one he said was a sort of historic and geographic work, the other on religion. He spoke the Rufsian language to make him be understood, and seemed all that Lisippe describes him, for gentleness of character and manners; in fhort his whole pleasure, when at home, seemed to lie in his pipe, books, and charts. Her imperial majesty has ordered him to becarried home at her expence, in a vessel fitted out at Ohotsk, and Mr Laxmann's son is to accompany him, and to see him safe to Japan. You know the cause of the uncommon phenomenon of seeing a Japanese in Petersburgh, as his misfortunes have been told in different languages, and most certainly in English.. He sailed from Japan, in a vefsel of which he was. proprietor, loaded fortunately with rice to supply himself and crew with food, during the incredible time his vessel was the sport of the winds without a rudder, before he was fhipwrecked on one of the Fox islands, where he dwelt long with the Rufsians, till brought to Kamtchatka. Since his entrance into the empire, he has resided chiefly with Mr Laxmann at Irkutfk, together with his remaining crew, one of which only was here with him. During this visit of Mr Laxmann, I received, amongst some other cu rious fofsils, mostly his own discoveries in Siberia, A specimen of green jade, transparent in thin piecės,

Are any of these charts preserved? Could a copy of them be got I should deem it a particular favour to have one.

Edito

which Mr Laxmann afsures me is, or was employed in lieu of iron, by all the inhabitants of the Pacific ocean, before supplied with that useful metal by the circumnavigators. He said the Tchutfke likewise had their arms and utensils made of it, before they were supplied by the Russians, and that still every man carries a piece of it about him as a whetstone or hone. This must be what was erroneously termed green talc in the voyages of our navigators, a stone much too soft for such purposes, although of the same genus

**

As to the Kamtchatka expedition, conducted by our countryman Billings, little can be said till the result of the whole be given to Europe by the command of her imperial majesty.

In the mean time the public are acquainted with the failure of the first object proposed, viz. to make a tour by land or water from the mouth of the Kuluma round the Tchutfkoi Nofs to. Kamtchatka. By sea, the same icy barrier which prevented the further advancement of the great and intrepid navigator Cook, in one direction, equally prevented that of his pupil Billings. in another; nor was the practicability of surveying the coast by land found lefs difficult than by sea; so that, af... ter ascertaining the longitude and latitude of a few places, he proceeded to execute the second part of his instructions, viz. to proceed by sea on a voyage of discovery, by the old beaten track, with two vefsels built at Ohotsk, one of which he had the misfortune to lose. on setting out, on the Kamtchatka coast, and was obli

I have seen several specimens of the same stone instruments brought from the south scas, and agree with my correspondent in thinking it cannot with any degree of proprie y be called talc. Edit.

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ged to make his cruise alone, from which he retur ned last year, and is supposed to have sailed again. this year; he may pofsibly build another consort in place of the one lost, on the continent of America, where wood proper for the purpose is so plentiful.

Since the publication of the valuable voyages and maps of captain Cook, and his able afsistants, a chart has been given in Rufsia of these seas, coasts, &c. so well surveyed by that great seaman, wherever he could penetrate. The principal changes I have remarked, are, that the island captain Cook called Clerk's, and the Rufsians, Sind's, from the first discoverers, is not one, but a group of islands, composed of one great, and five small; a circumstance which the British navigator's course and distance did not permit him to ascertain. The other principal differences between the Russian and British charts are, that part of the coast of America, forming a triangle, bounded on Cook's maps by Point Banks, Cape Grenville, and Cape Trinity, is an island, named by the Russians Kihtak, separated from the continent by navigable straits, affording good harbours in their course. The Rufsians not only afsert that they had a place of trade at Kihtak (discovered to be an island by Imuloff whom Cook saw at Alaska,) but that they saw from their station his vefsel pafs by, when he first surveyed it, and that their trade is, and was, carried on with a' people called Kenai, who came down Cook's river for that purpose.

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If this be admitted, it will account in a much easier and shorter manner for the iron, and European beads found with the people of that part of the coast of

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