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.