In the last-mentioned work he seeks to prove that the St Petersburg Codex, for so many years accepted as the genuine text of the Babylonian school, is in reality a Palestinian text carefully altered so as to render it conformable to the Babylonian recension.
Forty years later it had a market at St Petersburg and the Baltic ports, and in 1796 there were nine brewing firms in the town.
He was afterwards ambassador at Berlin and St Petersburg.
In 1858 he was sent to St Petersburg on a special mission to seek the support of Russia against Napoleon III.
One of the longest circuits upon which it has been successfully worked is that between St Petersburg and Omsk, a distance of approximately 2400 miles of iron wire, with three repeating stations.