Vol. 6, book I. Pp. 189-244.

Bound together with: RYKACHEV, Mikhail Alexandrovich (1840-1919). Podniatie na Vozdushnom Share v S.-Peterburge 20 Maia/ 1 Iiunia 1873 [Balloon Flight in S.-Petersburg on May 20th / June 1st, 1873]. In: Zapiski Imperatorskogo Russkogo Geograficheskogo Obschestva po Obschei Geografii [Bulletins of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society on the Geography in General]. 1882. Vol. 6, book II.

First Edition. Large Octavo. [6], 276; [2], 77 pp. With five lithographed maps and three lithographed tables. Handsome period style red straight grained half morocco with raised bands and gilt lettering on the spine. A very good uncut copy.

Early important scientific account of a journey through little-known areas of north-eastern China (modern-day Inner Mongolia region), from Peking (Beijing) to the Russian border post in Tsurukaitu on the Argun River, via Lama Miao (Dolon Nor), the Great Khingan Mountain Range and Hailar (today the seat of the prefecture-level city of Hulunbuir). The author, astronomer and associate of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Hermann Fritsche, was then the director of the meteorological observatory in Peking, founded at the Russian Orthodox Mission in 1848. During his return travel to Russia in 1873, Fritsche chose a lesser-travelled route from Peking to Tsurukaitu, and conducted various observations at 28 points on the way (latitude and longitude, height above the sea level, air temperatures), compiling a detailed map of the region. Apart from the results of his observations, Fritsche’s account contains interesting notes on a Belgian Catholic mission near Kalgan (Zhangjiakou), flora of the Great Hingan Mountains, heights of several peaks, trade in Hailar, ruins of an ancient city found in the Mongolian steppe, &c. The lithographed folding map marks the main cities, villages, rivers, roads, Fritsche’s route, Buddhist monasteries, wells and springs, the Great Wall of China, &c. Overall an important early account of a travel through the Inner Mongolia region of China, illustrated with a detailed map. Published in the official periodical of the Russian Geographical Society, it was never reissued or printed separately. The current issue also contains six articles on precipitation in Saint Petersburg, Crimea, and Russia in general, supplemented by four lithographed maps and three lithographed tables.

The second work, bound at the rear, is an article by a Russian meteorologist Mikhail Rykachev, director of the General Physical Observatory in Saint Petersburg (1896-1913) and a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The text describes his balloon flight in 1873 in Saint Petersburg, the results of the observations of the magnetic needle oscillations, and data from the barometer, thermometer and hygrometer. Later, Rykachev became the first head of the Aeronautical Department of the Russian Technical Society (1881) and the first Chairman of the International Aeronautical Congress (1904).