Charles Colville Frankland (1797-1876). Narrative of a visit to the courts of Russia and Sweden, in the years 1830 and 1831. London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1832. 2 vols. C9056

Charles Colville Frankland (1797-1876). Narrative of a visit to the courts of Russia and Sweden, in the years 1830 and 1831. London: H. Colburn and R. Bentley, 1832. 2 vols. C9056

Location, Location... One can see from looking at a map that the piece of real estate Peter chose on which to plant a city might have been an ideal gate for trade from West to East and East to West for centuries. But most maps don't show what a sodden, marshy, insect and disease-ridden, unhealthy-for-humans swamp were the waterways at the mouth of the Neva at the beginning of the 18th century. It was poor land, sustaining a few fishing villages and trading posts; there was no source of fresh water here; the Neva was frozen from November through March. For those who did inhabit the area, timber was scant and had to be floated down the river for even the simplest of structures. But Peter had cast a determined eye on it and multitudes died in the process of turning the site into a city with more or less (mostly less) solid underpinnings that gave way nevertheless flood after flood, year after year. Pushkin's great poem, "The Bronze Horseman" has to do with the great flood of 1824, the worst one of all time. We don't learn, do we? Frankland's lithograph map of a flood control project shows how devoted was Peterborough's attempt to understand and control nature through science.

C9056