Of the predecessor of this map, a large diagram I prepared with
no shght labour ten years ago for the Geographical Society, I
wrote at the time as follows : —

'The sketch map shown, though in some parts without pretensions to
scientific accuracy, gives a fairly truthful representation of the heart of the
Caucasus. It indicates the complex character of the snowy chain, its
numerous spurs, how the glacier basins are distributed, how the ridges



THE DISCOVERERS OF THE CAUCASUS 25

encircle and divide them. The mountains east of the Mamison Pass are
laid down from the new survey. Mr. Donkin has, by means of numerous
magnetic bearings and photographs, depicted with considerable accuracy the
great Bezmgi Glacier. M. de Dechy has provided me with a mass of
photographs. For the rest, T have had materials of my own, in bearings
and sketches taken from many lofty standpoints. Thirty-six sheets of
topographical notes are embodied in that map.'

This work has been in some points superseded, but it has served
its purpose. The map which I am here able to produce owes no
doubt its general scientific precision almost entirely to the ob-
servations taken during the last ten years by the officers charged to
re-survey the great chain. It would be difficult to speak too highly
of the zeal and industry of several of these cartographers. But it
may be permissible to believe that the sympathy and appreciation
their work has met with on the spot, the suggestions and criticisms
that have been exchanged in mountain camps between them and
Alpine explorers, have afforded some help and encouragement to
our Eussian friends in their labours. Owing, to the delay in the
formal publication of the new survey, which is on the large scale
of one-verst to the inch, these labours have as yet met with but
limited recognition, even in Russia. M. Golovievsky, who was re-
sponsible for the Elbruz sheet, the only one yet officially published,
has, I understand, received honours from the geographers of St.
