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Birthday anniversary of Peter Simon Pallas
September 22 (October 3), 1741 in Berlin, in the family of professor of surgery was born Peter Simon Pallas, a scholar and lexicographer, naturalist, geographer and traveler.
The father of Peter Pallas was born in East Prussia, and his mother descended from an old Protestant family of immigrants from the French city of Metz. Pallas started to learn Latin, foreign languages quite early, and from 13 years of age attended lectures at Berlin University. He improved his knowledge in England and Holland.
The breadth of scientific interests made him a real person of encyclopedic knowledge. Of particular interest were the natural sciences. By the age of 25 Pallas acquired European fame as a prominent scientist and naturalist. At the same time, he received an invitation from the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, where he was offered a professorship. In 1767, Pallas and his wife arrived to St. Petersburg.
In 1768, the St Petersburg Academy of Sciences organized five geographical expeditions. They studied a variety of regions, mainly in European Russia (including the Urals), and had the following names in accordance with their main bases: three expeditions were called Orenburg ones, and two – Astrakhan ones. A 27-year-old Petersburg academician Peter Simon Pallas led the Orenburg expeditions. He developed the route for all the three groups up to 1772. On the way to Orenburg, he became the first scientist who studied the interfluve of Oka and Klyazma rivers. In the spring of 1769, Pallas explored Zhiguli, and studied the Sokolov Mountains and river Samara. Pallas was the first to explore a part of the Caspian lowland.
In 1770, Pallas was doing research in the Urals; he developed a scheme of the general structure of the Ural Mountains, which later became the basis for his theory of the formation of mountain ranges of the Earth. This was a great scientific discovery. He also described numerous lakes of the Urals, discovered a lot of minerals.
Continuing to explore Russia, in 1771 Pallas reached Omsk, went up the Irtysh to Semipalatinsk, visited the steel plants of the Altai.
In early March 1772 the scientist moved into the Trans-Baikal and crossed the Lake Baikal by ice, visited the territories bordering with China up to the Amur region; described Transbaikalia lakes. By his own admission, while traveling in Siberia, he made the richest botanical and zoological collections in the southern Baikal and the Baikal region.
In August 1772 Pallas returned to Krasnoyarsk. Botanical collections brought from Siberia allowed him to reject the opinion of I. Gmelin, who drew the line between Europe and Asia along the Yenisei; according to research by Pallas, it should go along the Urals.
In 1773, Peter Pallas was back in the Urals and explored the rivers Ufa, Tanyp, the lakes Elton, Baskunchak, Large and Small Bogdo mountains. During his travel over Siberia, he published a book "Travels in various provinces of the Russian Empire."
Scientific results of Pallas’ expedition surpassed all expectations. A unique material in zoology, botany, paleontology, geology, physical geography, economics, history, ethnography had been collected. The collections gathered during this trip formed the basis for the collections of the academic Cabinet of Curiosities, many of them are still held by the museums of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and a part of them is at Berlin University. In his numerous ethnographic descriptions Pallas first told in detail about the Kalmyks, Tatars, Mordvin, Chuvash, Nogais, Tungus (Evenki), Votyaks (Udmurtia) and Cheremis (Mari). In addition, he brought with him a large natural science collection. For modern science, the intrinsic value is the fact that Pallas described the regions of Russia, its fields, grasslands, forests, rivers, lakes and mountains, at the time when they practically had not yet experienced the "transformative" impact of man and were heavily populated by animal species, many of which disappeared within a few decades.
In 1774, Pallas returned to St. Petersburg, where he continued to develop plans for new expeditions to Eastern Siberia, Kamchatka, the Kurile and Aleutian Islands. In 1777 he was appointed a member of the topography of the Russian Empire; in 1782 – a Board counselor, in 1786 - historian of the Admiralty Board. In 1785 Catherine II charged Pallas with the collection and comparative analysis of the languages of the peoples of the America, Asia, Europe and Russia. Having completed the research, on behalf of the Empress, Pallas issued a comparative dictionary in two volumes (1787-1789), which presented more than 200 languages and dialects of the peoples of Asia and Europe, including 142 Asian languages, 51 European languages and 50 languages of the peoples of the North. In 1790-1791 the dictionary, amended and corrected, was reissued. The new four-volume edition featured 272 languages and dialects, which also included 30 African languages and 23 American languages.
In 1793-1794, after browsing and processing the material, Pallas conducted a study in southern Russia and Crimea. At the beginning of the journey he got a very bad cold that plagued him until the end of days. Later he moved to the Crimea for health improvement.
In his "Notes of travel in the southern province of the Russian Empire from 1793 to 1794" Pallas described his second big trip. He also wrote works on the history of the Mongolian people, the description of the Taurida region, etc. In addition, Pallas was publishing the "New Nordic notes to physical and geographical description of Earth and peoples, the history of science and economy."
In his later years, among other things, Pallas was preparing a fundamental three-volume work on the fauna of Russia «Zoographia rosso-asiatica» («Russian-Asian zoology"), which presented more than 900 species of vertebrates, including 151 species of mammals, of which about 50 new species. Until the early 20th century the book remained the main source of knowledge about the fauna of Russia. In 1810, Peter Simon Pallas went to Berlin to prepare illustrations for the work on the fauna of Russia.
(20) September 1811 the famous scientist died and was buried in Berlin. On his grave was placed a monument with an inscription in Latin: "Peter Simon Pallas, academic, who had traveled in many countries and researched the phenomena of the nature, found peace here." It was truly a great man and a traveler. He set an example of an unprecedented precision in the scientific processing of the collected materials.
The name of Pallas bear a volcano on the Kuril Islands, a reef near the New Guinea, as well as many animals and plants.
Lit.: Архипова Н. Пётр Симон Паллас — учёный и путешественник // Наука Урала. 2001. № 29-30 С. 13, 15; Ефремов Ю. К. Отечественные физико-географы и путешественники. М., 1959. С. 132—145; Куприянов А. Н. Арабески ботаники. Кемерово, 2003; Маракуев В. Н. Пётр Симон Паллас, его жизнь, учёные труды и путешествия. М., 1877; Молявко Г. И. Геологи. Географы. Киев, 1985; Муравьёв В. Б. Дорогами российских провинций: путешествия Петра-Симона Палласа. М., 1977; Райков Б. Е. Русские биологи-эволюционисты до Дарвина. Т. 1. М.; Л. 1952; Соколов В. Е., Парнес Я. А. Пётр Симон Паллас — основатель отечественной зоологии (к 175-летию издания «Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica») // Вопросы истории естествознания и техники. 1987. № 2. С. 118—127; Супруненко П. П., Супруненко Ю. П. Путешественники и мореплаватели. Кн. 2. М., 2005; Сытин А. К. Пётр Симон Паллас — ботаник. М., 1997; Трапезников А. А. Русские путешественники. М., 2003; 300 путешественников и исследователей. М., 1966.
Based on the Presidential Library’s materials:
Peter Simon Pallas (1741–1811): [digital collection];
Начертание общего топографического и физического описания Российской империи. СПб., 1778;
Паллас П. С. Путешествие по разным провинциям Российской Империи. СПб., 1809;