Travels through the southern provinces of the Russian Empire, in the years 1793 and 1794. Translated from the German of P.S. Pallas, Counsellor of State to His Imperial Majesty of All the Russias, Knight, &c. In two volumes. With many coloured vignettes, plates, and maps

Peter Simon Pallas; Francis William Blagdon

A. Strahan, Printers Street, for T.N. Longman and O. Rees, Paternoster-Row, London, MDCCCII--MDCCCIII [1802-1803]

[Southern Russia, Ukraine, Crimea During the Reign of Catherine the Great : Color Plates] 2 volumes. Large Quartos, 29 x 22.5 cm.  Bound in 19th century brown calf.  Rebacked. Gilt spines and gilt ruled covers.  Some shelf wear to cover extremities. Speckled edges. xxiv, 552 pp., 25 plates (most folding, includes one map) 14 colored vignettes; xxxii, 523, [1] pp., 27 plates, 14 colored vignettes, three folding maps at end.  Four text leaves in first volume provided in facsimile (leaves 265-272).  "An extremely charming colour plate book [which] deserves a place in every colour plate book collection for its numerous attractive coloured vignettes, an unusual feature" - Abbey Travel 222. Wellcome IV:288. Lowndes 1766. Nissen, ZBI 3065.  

Pallas was a German naturalist who served as a professor of natural history at the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg during the reign of Catherine II.  He famously was part of an early scientific expedition through Russia and Siberia and made important discoveries of mammoth and rhinoceros fossils from Siberia.  In 1793-4 he made a second expedition to southern Russia, exploring Crimea, the Black Sea, and the Dnieper valley. In 1799 this work "Bemerkungen auf einer Reise in die Sudlichen Statthalterschaften des Russischen Reichs," was published contributing to early geologic, ecologic, and ethnographic knowledge of the region.