ABSTRACT
The second scientific expedition into Siberia concludes a great enterprise which had extended over fifty years-from the time of Bering and Peter the Great to that of Pallas and Catherine the Great—and which had had as its objective the exploration and description of the enormous empire that Russia had politically gained in the preceding century. Soviet authors tend rather mechanically to divide the century in the middle, and when periodizing the Siberian explorations they also speak of the first half and the second half of the century. After Johann Sievers's publications, the yield of Siberian travel accounts resumes its disappointing character, although a constant flow of travellers to Siberia—most of them on official missions—continues. James Holman's Siberian excursion ended in 1824. After this date, the interest of travellers as expressed through substantial accounts shifted to new regions.
