In Scandinavia The Natural Historian, Especially The
Mineralogist, Will Be Chiefly Interested.
The vast extent of the Russian
empire also affords objects of curious and novel research to the
botanist and zoologist, few to the mineralogist.
The Salt Mines of
Poland afford the principal objects of investigation to scientific
travellers in this country. Manners, habits, political institutions, and
religion, of course, are interesting in all; and to those whose studies
and enquiries lead them to investigate the differences in the different
families of the human race, the opportunities afforded them by the
Gothic Nations of Scandinavia; the Slavonic nations of Russia and
Poland; and the totally distinct and singular races which inhabit
Lapland and Finland, must be valuable and useful.
When we enter Turkey, the scene changes, or rather expands. Within its
European, as well as its Asiatic empire, travellers of all descriptions,
however various their objects, will find rich and ample materials.
Situated in a mild climate, with great variety of soil, in it are found
plants remarkable for their uses in medicine and the arts, or for their
beauty: its mountainous districts contain treasures for the
mineralogist; and to the politician and student of human nature, it
exhibits the decided effects of the Mahometan religion, and of Asiatic
despotism. But what principally distinguishes it from the other
countries which have hitherto occupied us, must be sought in its ruins
of Grecian magnificence and taste: in the traces and evidences it
affords of ancient times, manners, and acquirements: in the hold it
possesses over our feelings, and even over our judgment, as being
classic ground - the soil which nourished the heroes of Marathon and the
bard of Troy.
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