Travels and Researches in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, and Armenia

The surgeon William Ainsworth (1807-96) acted as the geologist of the 1835 Euphrates Expedition, his account of which is also reissued in this series. Great interest was aroused by the scientific and archaeological findings of that journey, and the Royal Geographical Society helped to fund a further expedition, ostensibly to make contact with the Nestorian Christians of the region, but covertly to make further mineralogical investigations. Ainsworth was the leader of the expedition, and his two-volume account was published in 1842. Starting from Istanbul in 1839, he took a route through Asia Minor, northern Syria, Kurdistan, Persia and Armenia, returning to Istanbul in 1840. The expedition was not regarded as a success, as Ainsworth had massively overspent the budget originally allotted by the sponsors, and his secret activities were discovered by the Ottoman authorities, but the work remains a vivid account of the area.