Mikhail Ivanovitch Veneioukov

“ In Russia all the northern provinces, from the frontier of Norway to the Ural Mountains, have been explored only superficially, and the only well-traced lines are those of the coasts and of the beds of the great rivers. ”

“ Our knowledge of Mesopotamia and Syria is being rapidly increased by the zeal of antiquarian explorers, whose investigations, although they are rather historical than geographical, and concern the past rather than the present, are not without results of contemporary interest. In Asia Minor and Armenia, researches already carried on need to be completed and systematized and made generally applicable to the whole country ”

“ The great desert of Gobi has lately been tolerably well explored, but the question is still to be answered whether it is crossed by a chain of mountains connecting the eastern end of the Thian-Shan with the In-shan. The mountains, if they exist, can not be very high, for no large rivers flow from the region, and some streams flow toward it; but they are marked on several maps of China, including that of the Russian staff ”

“ To make such researches successful, one must of course be an accomplished scholar in Oriental linguistics and philosophy, but the possible results of such investigations are so attractive that I am disposed to believe in their near realization. ”

“ Anthropological interest is attached to the heterogeneous populations of the western provinces of this vast country, and we may possibly find among them the missing links of the chain that may connect the yellow race with the white race. ”