is not easy to read, because of misty wording and the chaotic structure, but has a lot of interesting engravings, made by himself. It can be compared with Doctrine for Naval Architecture by fellow-shipbuilder Anthony Dean, a mayor of Harwich and also a mentor of Peter the Great. It led to a correspondence between him and Peter the Great on modernising the Imperial Russian Navy, then backward by Western European standards. This led to an order for warships from Amsterdam shipyards in return for an ukase (negotiated by Witsen) on Dutch-Russian trade, guaranteeing to supply the Republic with grain, wood, talc, tar and skins. In 1697 Witsen organised a four-month training period for the tsar at the Dutch East India Company shipyards during his Grand Embassy, with the Tsar staying in Jacob J. Hinlopen's house and being taken by Witsen among many others to meet the botanist and anatomist Frederik Ruysch. Cartography After 20 years' study, Witsen published the first map of Siberia in 1690. This map represented the world from Nova Zembla to as far away as China. Witsen had discussed with the tsar the trade routes to Persia via the Caspian Sea and to China via Siberia. In 1692 he published a compendium titled "Noord en Oost Tartarye", describing Siberia and the surrounding areas, though without literary references. He consulted classical authors and Arabic medieval writers as well as his learned contemporaries in Europe. The second enlarged edition, a bulky book, also written in the 17th century Dutch, presents a rather complicated mixture of various texts with encyclopaedic details. It appeared in 1705 and was reprinted in 1785. In this book, Witsen gave an account of all the information available to the Europeans at that time about the northern and eastern parts of Europe and Asia, and also about the Volga area, Crimea, Caucasus, Central Asia, Mongolia, Tibet, China, Korea and the neighbouring parts of Japan. In the text, for instance, we find lists of 900 Georgian and 700 Kalmyk words and illustrations of the writing systems of Tibetan, Manchu and Mongolian languages. Witsen provides word lists and other data on more than 25 languages. In 1692 Witsen received the diary of Maarten Gerritsz Vries, who had explored the coast of Sahkalin in 1643, and it was never seen again. Mayor and Maecenas In 1688, Witsen was visited and invited more than once to discuss William III's proposed