Potanin, Grigori N.

born January 21, 1835
a native of Siberia (Yamyshevskoy page). He spent his childhood on the border of the Kirghiz steppes, he studied at the Omsk Cadet Corps. As a young officer, participated in a hike in the Zailiyski Region. The first scientific work was his analysis of ancient acts of Omsk archive. Aware of his lack of preparation for scientific work, Potanin in 1858, Mr.. I went to St. Petersburg and listened to a three-year university course, and in the summer doing tours of the Volkhov and the Urals. In 1863 - 1864 he. he participated in the expedition KV. Struve in the area of Lake Zaisan, where he studied fishing lake and collected botanical collection. In 1865, Mr.. Potanin was appointed secretary of the provincial statistical committee in Tomsk. Brought to trial on charges of seeking to separate from Russia, Siberia, he was sentenced to hard labor, which served in Sveaborg, then was installed in the city Nikolsk, Vologda. In 1874, at the request of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, Potanin was pardoned and married. In the spring of 1876, Mr.. Potanin, left, on behalf of the Geographical Society, in the north-western Mongolia. Expedition him for two years swept the country from all sides, and gathered rich data on all branches of geographical knowledge. During the first expedition soon followed by a second (1879), which had to study the central part of Mongolia. All mined in these two trips have been developed and promulgated Potanin Geographical Society in "Essays on the north-western Mongolia", published in 1883. The new expedition in Gansu entered topographer AI. Skassi and zoologist MM. Berezovsky. Funds for the expedition was given partly Geographical Society, partly VP. Sukachev. The expedition went to sea in the Chi-fu, and thence, via Beijing, the two northern provinces of China and the Ordos, came to Gansu to the end of 1884. The following year was devoted to the study of the eastern edge of Tibet; way back to Russia occurred in 1886. the ridge Nan-shan and the whole central Mongolia. The wealth of material collected works of members of the expedition, placed in various professional journals, mainly in the publication of the Geographical Society "Tangut-Tibetan outskirts of China and Central Mongolia" (1893). The richness of the collected results prompted the Geographical Society to equip another expedition under the command of new Potanin, in 1892, to continue studying the same eastern edge of Tibet. It consisted of more MM. Berezovsky and geologist VA. Obruchev, means the same part were given the geographic society, partly IM. Sibiryakov. Potanin re-elected the way through Beijing, was made in December 1892. to the west and through the Ordos held in the Chinese province of Szechuan. There Potanin is expected to be on the Tibetan Plateau, but the illness of his wife (cm. above) made his hasty retreat. On the way back to Beijing Potanin visited some areas, as long unknown to Europeans. After the death of his wife Potanin returned to St. Petersburg, his comrades, Berezovsky and Obruchev, each independently, continued to work in Central Asia. YU. Sh