All Along the Watchtower I wish to thank <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0017907 http://d-nb.info/gnd/1017902623 ">Tobias Kraft</persName>, <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0017958">Florian Schnee</persName>, and <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0001805 http://d-nb.info/gnd/139028285">Ulrich Päßler</persName> for their efforts in making the Russo-Siberian Journal widely accessible, and Tobias in particular for his generous feedback on this chapter. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/SQIJQSDJ">Secord 2018</bibl>, 401–02. Cf. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/UHZ9JG6I">Nicolson 1997 [1959]</bibl>; <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/426LKXAJ">Bigg 2007</bibl>, 78–79, 87; <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/9ICD7N7F">Kraft 2015a</bibl>. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/MLRJ4EKR">Scott 2009</bibl>, 41–63; <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/7VQB72EP">Simpson 2017</bibl>. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/HPXECV7V">Ledebour 1829–1830</bibl>, 176, 377; <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/G4RQZBKJ">Ledebour 1830</bibl>, 19. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural02_1842/223">II, 205</ref>. <figDesc xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0">Figure 1: Map of the saltworks of <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0006665 https://www.geonames.org/491019">Ileckaya Zaščita</placeName> by <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/R4WQUN9R">Pallas 1771</bibl> in the fortress and Wachtberg indicated top-right by the letters A. and C. The sentinel was position to surveil saltworks and Steppe alike. <ref target="https://www.e-rara.ch/zuz/content/zoom/16423154">Zentralbibliothek Zürich</ref>, NR 230 | G – NR 235 | G / Public Domain Mark.</figDesc> The <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">Wachtberg</hi>, not the mountain sublime, is the proper emblem of science in Russia’s industrial frontier. In these contested borderlands, metallurgy, stone quarries, and saltworks served both as sites of natural inquiry and footholds of political power. The geo-administrative assemblage of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0019274 https://www.geonames.org/1535057">Karaulnaya</placeName> Gora—a natural watchtower—stands as a grim monument to colonial science more generally. It substantiates the fundamental link, especially in Humboldt’s Siberian travels, between geo-climatic survey and military surveillance, iso-thermal lines and lines of fortification. In the course of the eighteenth century, Russian mining exploits in the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0009659 https://www.geonames.org/1488441">Urals</placeName> and <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002407 https://www.geonames.org/1516401">Altai</placeName> replaced the Siberian fur trade as the <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">raison d’être</hi> for eastward expansion. A system of exile, also begun under <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0001167 http://d-nb.info/gnd/118592955">Peter the Great</persName>, was devised to meet labor demands and thereby colonize “Asiatic” Russia.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn12" n="12"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/TMW8YEA9">Popova 2018</bibl>.</note> Humboldt’s circuits through Russian Siberia not only followed in the footsteps of a long line of Germanophone naturalists working under Tsarist patronage, like <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0011804 http://d-nb.info/gnd/100166393">Hermann</persName> and <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0001770 http://d-nb.info/gnd/118591371">Pallas</persName>. He also trod the same ruddy roads as the 300,000 people banished from “European Russia” between the 1823 and 1861—as when he, <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0001040 http://d-nb.info/gnd/116609036">Rose</persName>, and company passed a fettered “transport of exiles” along the road to the Urals or later stopped at the prisoner waystation of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0009435 https://www.geonames.org/1489530">Tobolsk</placeName> en route to the Altai.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn13" n="13"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/NADISPBH">Gentes 2010</bibl>, 6; <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/144">I, 110</ref>. </note> Humboldt entered <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0019068">Western Siberia</placeName> just as a new exile policy, the reforms of governor-general <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0015996 http://d-nb.info/gnd/1053507836">Mikhail Speranky</persName>, took full effect. The criminalization of vagrancy and outsourcing of deportation powers to serf-owners produced a penal workforce of unprecedented scale among European empires.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn14" n="14"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/TMQFGR7W">Beer 2016</bibl>, 21–27.</note> In Siberia, they were to make a mineral empire of the platinum deposits, silver lodes, and goldfields that Humboldt surveyed. <figDesc xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0">Figure 2: New Smelting Huts and School of Mines in <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005133 https://www.geonames.org/1510853">Barnaul</placeName>, near to the <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0010151 https://www.geonames.org/1485042">Zmeinogorsk Mines</placeName> of the <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002407 https://www.geonames.org/1516401">Altai</placeName>, in <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/G4RQZBKJ">Ledebour 1830</bibl>. Image retrieved from the <ref target="https://www.loc.gov/item/2018694148/">Library of Congress</ref>. </figDesc> <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/547">I, 513</ref>. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/5UIBXW5S">Humboldt 2005</bibl>. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/452">I, 418</ref>. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/452">I, 418</ref>, nt. i. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/620">I, 586</ref>–<ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/621">587</ref>. Redoubts in all their Russian forms also offered stable bases in which to erect magnetic tents or perform celestial navigation. Returning west to <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0007824 https://www.geonames.org/1496153">Omsk</placeName>, the administrative seat of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0006725 https://www.geonames.org/1524297">Irtysch</placeName> Line, Humboldt recorded longitude from the commanding quarters of the city’s <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">katorga</hi>—the same that held <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0020376 https://d-nb.info/gnd/118527053">Fyodor Dostoevsky</persName> from 1850–1854.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn28" n="28"> <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/8v">Humboldt RST I, 8v</ref>, <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/31v">31v</ref>–<ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/32v">32v</ref>; <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/TKGUVJEV">Humboldt 1843</bibl>, III, 490; <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/DV9UD9GW">Humboldt 1844</bibl>, II, 305.</note> Humboldt’s “notes from a dead house” betray little of the penal institution Dostoevsky would describe: the barracks, workhouses, and hexagonal ramparts that, in 1829, confined some 200 inmates with half-shaven heads.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn29" n="29"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/NADISPBH">Gentes 2010</bibl>, 180.</note> In his semi-autobiographical novel, Dostoevsky’s narrator recorded a particular hatred for “the major’s house,” an “accursed and loathsome place,” in whose garden Humboldt once tilted his <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000728 http://d-nb.info/gnd/117686573">Ramsden</persName> telescope to the sky. Yet Dostoevsky’s prisoner found solace in the same “unfathomable blue sky” that Humboldt surveilled, “as a captive gazes at freedom from the window of his prison.”<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn30" n="30"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/4WU5BUNZ">Dostoevsky 2008</bibl>, 275–276.</note> The Omsk <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">katorga</hi> was both a penitentiary and an observatory; its barricaded structures welcoming to the savant, repulsive to the convict; its sky a realm of celestial navigation, or salvation. Such were the complex semiotics of science in a land known as the “vast roofless prison.” Oriental Orography and the Russian Cordilleras <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/554">I, 520</ref>–<ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/556">522</ref>. Cf. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/HPXECV7V">Ledebour 1829–1830</bibl>, 12 The coincidence of orientalism and earth science in <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0010218 https://www.geonames.org/2016590">Siberia</placeName> blurred the boundary between cultural and natural landscapes, as between antiquarian and geological methods. As <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0020377 https://d-nb.info/gnd/131674919">Pratik Chakrabarti</persName> has shown, colonial geologists of the period sometimes treated archeological digs, ancient texts, and indigenous mythology as geo-historical references, documents of “deep nature,” which might also aid in the pursuit of mineral wealth.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn35" n="35"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/X52ISPDP">Chakrabarti 2020</bibl>, 19–20, 122–23, 188–90.</note> Similarly, in the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002407 https://www.geonames.org/1516401">Altai</placeName>, Humboldt corroborated mineralogical evidence with the manuscripts, myths, and artefacts he encountered there. The very meaning of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002407 https://www.geonames.org/1516401">Altai</placeName>, as the “golden mountains,” had been devised by a suite of German scholars as the restoration of ancient oriental knowledge. According to Chechesh Kudachinova’s essential studies of Siberian geography, Humboldt’s works helped canonize the “golden mountain” mythology, which took shape during several decisive moments in <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0010689 https://www.geonames.org/2017370">Russia</placeName>’s metallurgic conquest of the east.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn36" n="36"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/IWJ8JAVE">Kudachinova 2015</bibl>, 124–125, 144–145; <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/895L2J9L">idem. 2020</bibl>, 29–39.</note> The first reference to the golden mountains, in <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0013514 http://d-nb.info/gnd/11903705X">Johann Georg Gmelin</persName>’s account of the Second Kamchatka Expedition across Siberia (published in 1747), coincided with the establishment of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000450 https://www.geonames.org/1502823">Kolyvanskie</placeName> “Cabinet Lands.” A precious metal mining fiefdom of the Tsar, Kolyvanskie served as a foothold of Russian power in the north <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002407 https://www.geonames.org/1516401">Altai</placeName>. Gmelin was followed by <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0020209 https://d-nb.info/gnd/118953362">Friedrich Müller</persName> and <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0001770 http://d-nb.info/gnd/118591371">Pallas</persName>, who located Altai’s etymology in the Mongol and Manchu-Chinese languages. Though based on loose readings of Mongolian and Turkic languages (which make no reference to precious metals) and false Chinese translations, the golden mountain myth was apparently confirmed by the prosperity of the Kolyvanskie mining operations. Here, as in <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005133 https://www.geonames.org/1510853">Barnaul</placeName>, travelers purchased golden artefacts exhumed from ancient barrows. In both sites, antiquarian trade cast Russia’s mineral empire as a resurrection of golden empires past.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn37" n="37"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/895L2J9L">Kudachinova 2020</bibl>, 35. </note> <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/105r">Humboldt RST I, 105</ref>; <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural02_1842/352">II, 334</ref>. The metallic, shimmering tents for which Westerners named Mongolia’s Golden Horde emblazoned <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0010689 https://www.geonames.org/2017370">Russia</placeName>’s precious metal industry with an exotic prehistory, as if to place the Russian Emperor in a succession of “Golden Princes (<hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">Altun-khans</hi>).”<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn43" n="43"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/DV9UD9GW">Humboldt 1844</bibl>, I, 161.</note> Shortly after Humboldt’s journey, the senate endorsed this vision by renaming <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0001165 http://d-nb.info/gnd/118588079">Nicholas’</persName> Kolywanskie factories the Altai factories (<hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">Altaiskii gornyi okrug</hi>). Meanwhile, to the east, new deposits of gold were being unearthed in the Kara of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0017338 https://www.geonames.org/7779061">Transbaikal</placeName>, just as the Polish and Lithuanian uprisings of 1830/31 created a massive influx of convict labor. In fetters, they marched across the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002407 https://www.geonames.org/1516401">Altai</placeName> to so-called Siberian Gold Rush of the 1830s and 40s. By mid-century, Russia produced 40 percent of the world’s gold. <figDesc xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0">Figure 3: Detail from Humboldt’s map of the <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0020292 https://www.geonames.org/466003">southern Urals</placeName>, from <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0001688 https://www.geonames.org/520494">Nižne-Tagil’skij </placeName>far beyond the <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0018577">Orenburg</placeName> Line, through the Kleine Horde der Kirghisen, and into the 'isthmus' between the <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000384 https://www.geonames.org/630671">Caspian</placeName> and <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002514 https://www.geonames.org/1526250">Aral</placeName> seas. <ref target="https://www.e-rara.ch/zut/content/zoom/6873160">ETH-Bibliothek Zürich</ref>, Rar 5853 / Public Domain Mark.</figDesc> In the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0009659 https://www.geonames.org/1488441">Urals</placeName>, too, Humboldt’s orography extended apace with the Empire, expressing ambitions far beyond “the border of human civilization” where some maps went blank. In Humboldt’s map of <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">“</hi>Chaines de montagnes et volcans de l’<placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0015014 https://www.geonames.org/7729893">Asie Centrale</placeName>,” <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0010689 https://www.geonames.org/2017370">Russia</placeName>’s great meridian range stretches far beyond the Orenburg Line, cutting through the <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">Petite Horde des Kirghiz</hi> (Figure 3). Russia’s southern advance was not far from Humboldt’s mind when he took up the task, offered by the Tsar’s Finance Minister, <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0012872 http://d-nb.info/gnd/118666878">Georg Cancrin</persName>, to carry out a mineral survey with particular focus on platinum in the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0020292 https://www.geonames.org/466003">south Ural</placeName> region. Writing to Cancrin in 1827, he dreamt of the “delightful prospect” of “the Urals and the <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">soon-to-be-Russian</hi> <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002518 https://www.geonames.org/325164">Ararat</placeName>” (emphasis added), referring to the Armenian mountain recently claimed for the Russian Emperor in the final Russo-Persian conflict over the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000394 https://www.geonames.org/573081">Caucasus</placeName>.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn44" n="44"> Humboldt to Cancrin, <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005221 https://www.geonames.org/2950159">Berlin</placeName>, 19 November 1827, in <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/RQ7INXBQ">Humboldt 2009a</bibl>, 76.</note> The southern extent of the Urals was ill-defined amongst geographers because it was disputed amongst nations. The fortification of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0007860 https://www.geonames.org/514734">Orsk</placeName> jasper quarry and surveillance of saltworks at <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0006665 https://www.geonames.org/491019">Ileckaya Zaščita</placeName> made this clear.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn45" n="45"> Orsk and Ileckaya Zaščita are two in a long list of fortified industrial sites in Humboldt’s itinerary. On the history of the militarized “Lines” Humboldt circuited, see <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/RQ7INXBQ">Humboldt 2009a</bibl>, 162, nt. 12. </note> Mapping mountains where the Line’s sentries could not see presented particular challenges for Humboldt—and opportunities for the Empire. Here, again, Humboldt corroborated geological and ethnographic information. In <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0007842 https://www.geonames.org/515003">Orenburg</placeName>, he sourced topographical details from “a manuscript-map of the lands of the Small Horde” kept in an officer’s “rich Asiatic Collection.”<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn46" n="46"> See editors’ note to <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/95v">Humboldt RST I, 95v</ref>; <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/DV9UD9GW">Humboldt 1844</bibl>, I, 276, nt.</note> According to Humboldt’s notes, the map corresponded to the geological and hypsometric investigations of <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0011769 http://d-nb.info/gnd/116691174">Gregor von Helmersen</persName> (1803–1885) and <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0011946 https://explore.gnd.network/gnd/116951079">Ernst Hofmann</persName> (1801–1871), also enrolled in <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0012872 http://d-nb.info/gnd/118666878">Cancrin</persName>’s mineralogical campaign. “Hofm[an] and H[elmersen] adopt my opinion of the prolongation of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0006673 https://www.geonames.org/1505865/">Ilmeny Mountains</placeName>,” Humboldt noted of the point at which the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0009659 https://www.geonames.org/1488441">Urals</placeName> appeared to splinter into three chains around <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0015024 https://www.geonames.org/462444">Zlatoust</placeName>, south of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005599 https://www.geonames.org/1486209">Yekaterinburg</placeName>.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn47" n="47"> <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/94v">Humboldt RST I, 94v</ref>–<ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/95v">95v</ref>. </note> As <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0017907 http://d-nb.info/gnd/1017902623 ">Tobias Kraft</persName> and <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0017958">Florian Schnee</persName> have indicated, a major focus of Humboldt’s notes from the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0020292 https://www.geonames.org/466003">south Urals</placeName> was to delineate these splintered chains and the watersheds that fell into the “longitudinal valleys” between them.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn48" n="48"> <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/82v">Humboldt RST I, 82v</ref>–<ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/84v">84v</ref>.</note> There appeared to him “no doubt” that the ridgelines of the Ilmeny Mountains were truly “a continuation of this same eastern chain, which after joining the central chain of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0017489 https://www.geonames.org/556201">Irendik</placeName> and <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0011128 https://www.geonames.org/1517742">Guberlin</placeName> turn toward the isthmus between the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002514 https://www.geonames.org/1526250">Aral</placeName> and <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000384 https://www.geonames.org/630671">Caspian</placeName>.”<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn49" n="49"> <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/95v">Humboldt RST I, 95v</ref>.</note> The sweeping claim appeared to make light work of yet another fragmented mountain-system. In truth, though, a subtler rhetoric was required to make the Ural’s southern advance a fait accompli. In <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">Asie Centrale</hi> Humboldt likened the “tripartition” of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0020292 https://www.geonames.org/466003">southern Urals</placeName> to the parallelism of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002454">Andean Cordilleras</placeName>, so named for their cord-like bifurcation in <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000448 https://www.geonames.org/3686110">Columbia</placeName>.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn50" n="50"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/DV9UD9GW">Humboldt 1844</bibl>, I, 277–278. Cf. “Paralletisme [sic] des formations” in <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/94v">Humboldt RST I, 94v</ref>.</note> As <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0020378 https://d-nb.info/gnd/142106380">Bernard Debarbieux</persName> observed, Humboldt tended to arrange mountains into meridians and parallels. This brought the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0009659 https://www.geonames.org/1488441">Urals</placeName> into a dialogue with the longitudinal ranges of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0001698 https://www.geonames.org/7729890">North</placeName> and <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0010380 https://www.geonames.org/6255150">South America</placeName>, forming a marked right angle with the meridians figured by the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0009367 https://www.geonames.org/1489643">Tian Shan</placeName> and <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000502 https://www.geonames.org/1280792">Kunlun</placeName> on Humboldt’s map of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0015014 https://www.geonames.org/7729893">Central Asia</placeName>.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn51" n="51"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/ZPUIZUYQ">Debarbieux 2012</bibl>, 22–25.</note> The Andean reference also stemmed from wider survey of geological analogies, both in the <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/0">Russo-Siberian journal</ref> and in a global study of the parallelism of mountain formations. Indeed, as Lachlan Fleetwood has shown, the quest to make disparate global mountain environments “commensurate” was characteristic of early nineteenth-century European efforts to map and govern Central Asia’s bewildering upland expanses.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn52" n="52"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/TBSKHBA8">Fleetwood 2018</bibl>, 6, 34; <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/H4B7J2KD">Fleetwood 2022</bibl>.</note> In Humboldt’s case, this project also had clear implications for mineral prospecting.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn53" n="53"> E.g. Humboldt to <persName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0012872 http://d-nb.info/gnd/118666878">Cancrin</persName>, 3 April 1830, in <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/INI9PQE6">Humboldt/Cancrin 1869</bibl>, 124–126. See also <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/W9N24TFG">Päßler 2017</bibl>.</note> Comparison to gold and platinum deposits of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005346 https://www.geonames.org/3469034">Brazil</placeName> led Humboldt to tell <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0012872 http://d-nb.info/gnd/118666878">Cancrin</persName> “the Ural is a true El Dorado.”<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn54" n="54"> Humboldt to Cancrin, <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0008855 https://www.geonames.org/1498894">Miass</placeName>, 3/15 September 1829, in <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/RQ7INXBQ">Humboldt 2009a</bibl>, 185.</note> The Cordilleras-concept of parallel chains was therefore useful in establishing orographic coherence, especially in the complex and by no means <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">mountainous</hi> geography of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000374 https://www.geonames.org/1519671">Kyrgyz Steppe</placeName>. <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0011946 https://explore.gnd.network/gnd/116951079">Hofmann</persName> and <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0011769 http://d-nb.info/gnd/116691174">Helmersen</persName> did themselves concede that “the height of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0006673 https://www.geonames.org/1505865/">Ilmeny Chain</placeName> … diminishes greatly in its southern extension,” only to add that this “does not generally matter” in tracing the Urals “into the Kyrghyz Steppe.”<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn55" n="55"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/GKQENRV5">Hofmann/Helmersen 1831</bibl>, 3; editors’ notes to <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/95v">Humboldt RST I, 95v</ref>.</note> Humboldt agreed: the Ural’s southern terminus in the Steppe “might be invalid if one was not authorized to regard a single <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">mountain-system</hi> as sometimes composed of several partial, heterogenous upheavals.”<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn56" n="56"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/DV9UD9GW">Humboldt 1844</bibl>, I, 276.</note> Humboldt’s <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">regard</hi> is significant in this passage, as one <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">authorized</hi> to see, combine, and assemble disparate geographies into coherent mountain-systems. This chapter has explored the corresponding social system that authorized such a survey—the mines, border posts, and mountain-sentinels that made it possible to trace out the “Diorite- and Porphyry Rock that characterizes the Russian <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0009659 https://www.geonames.org/1488441">Urals</placeName>,” from the iron-barred pits of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0017566">Bogoslowsk</placeName> to the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0009035 https://www.geonames.org/608797">“Mughodjarischen Mountains”</placeName> of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000374 https://www.geonames.org/1519671">Kyrgyz Steppe</placeName>.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn57" n="57"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/DV9UD9GW">Ibid.</bibl>, 276.</note> The effect, in the Urals as in the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002407 https://www.geonames.org/1516401">Altai</placeName>, was to prove the epistemic power of mineral empire and its infrastructure, where local observations could be projected into the lands of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0010689 https://www.geonames.org/2017370">Russia</placeName>’s nomadic subjects and foes. In the Mountains is Freedom: Conclusion <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/RQ7INXBQ">Humboldt 2009a</bibl>, 223, nt. 3; <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/341">I, 307</ref>–<ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/342">308</ref>. <figDesc xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0">Figure 4: Sketch of gold deposits in the mid-Ural mining regions of Nižne-Tagil’skij, “begun by Fotij Il’ič Švecov,” Humboldt’s primary guide in the Urals. <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/73r">RST I, 73r</ref>.</figDesc> See <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://digilib.bbaw.de/digilib/digilib.html?fn=projects/avhr/Karten/Ural_1837">Karte vom Ural Gebirge (1837)</ref>. On <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0016185">Švecov</persName> as informant, middleman, and draftsman, see “Schwetsoff” in <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/355">I, 321</ref>–<ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/361">327</ref>. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural02_1842/39">II, 21</ref>. <bibl xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/BH8W3QPH">Rose 1837/1842</bibl>, <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural01_1837/357">I, 323</ref>; <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://www.deutschestextarchiv.de/rose_ural02_1842/163">II, 145</ref>. 