still at work on a map of Asia between 35° and 40° north latitude, and 61° and 81° east longitude; two astronomers were engaged in that region making observations to assist in its completion. Another map of Kokand and Bokhara was also forthcoming, and the Society had employed Messrs Butakoff and Chanykoff to prepare a complete atlas of Asia between 33° and 56° north latitude and 65° and 100° east longitude. A Russian nobleman had given 12,000 rubles to pay for making and publishing a Russian translation of Ritter's geography, but the society had determined not to undertake so immense a work (it is some 15,000 printed pages), and had determined only to take up those countries which have an immediate interest for Russia, using along with Ritter a great body of materials to which he had not access. These countries are Southern Siberia, Northern China, Turan, Korassan, Afghanistan and Persia. In Ritter's work these occupy 4,500 pages. No doubt the labors of the Society will greatly enrich geographical science. The Society have in hand an expedition to the peninsula of Kamschatka, in which they have been greatly assisted by the contributions of private persons. They also promise a classification of a vast collection of objects they have received bearing upon the ethnography of Russia. * * * * * We learn from the last Number of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ that the French government has lately made a literary acquisition of no ordinary interest and value. A French gentleman of the name of Perret has been engaged for six years in exploring THE CATACOMBS UNDER ROME, and copying, with the most minute and scrupulous fidelity, the remains of ancient art which are hidden in those extraordinary chambers. Under the authority of the papal government, and assisted by M. Savinien Petit, an accomplished French artist, M. Perret has explored the whole of the sixty catacombs together with the connecting galleries. Burying himself for five years in this subterranean city, he has thoroughly examined every part of it, in spite of difficulties and perils of the gravest character: for example, the refusal of his guides to accompany him; dangers resulting from the intricacy of the passages, from the necessity for clearing a way through galleries choked up with earth which fell in from above almost as fast as it was removed; hazards arising from the difficulty of damming up streams of water which ran in upon them from above, and from the foulness of the air and consequent difficulty of breathing and preserving light in the lower chambers;--all these, and many other perils, have been overcome by the honorable perseverance of M. Perret, and he has returned to France with a collection of drawings which extends to 360 sheets in large folio; of which 154 sheets contain representations of frescoes, 65 of monuments, 23 of paintings on glass (medallions inserted in the walls and at the bottoms