and indefatigable men, who served the expedition faithfully and loyally. I should also mention with equal gratitude the name of our late envoy at Peking — Major-General Alexander Gregorievitch Vlangali; for he was chiefly instrumental in organising the expedition, and he was its warmest supporter from first to last.
But although fortunate in the moral support I received, on the other hand the material resources of our expedition were extremely inadequate, and this circumstance impaired its efficiency. To say nothing of the privations which we experienced on the journey, entirely owing to the want of money, we were unable to provide ourselves even with the requisite good instruments for taking observations. For instance, we had only one mountain barometer, which soon broke, and I was obliged to have recourse to the ordinary Réaumur thermometer to determine heights by boiling water,[1] obtaining less accurate results; for magnetic observations луе had nothing but a common compass adapted for this purpose at the observatory of Peking. In fact, our outfit, even of the most necessary instruments for scientific observations, was of the most meagre description.
In the course of nearly three years,[2] in traversing
- ↑ Parrot's thermometer, which I took with me from St. Petersburg for measuring altitudes, broke during the journey through Siberia; however, in such a journey as ours, this instrument would have been too troublesome, and almost impossible to protect from breakage.
- ↑ From November 29, 1870, to October 1, 1873, i.e. from the day of our departure from Kiakhta to the day of our return to that place.
