The author of this memorandum, Russian scientist Dmitri
Ivanovich Mendeleyev (1834-1907), is most famous for his
discovery of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. His
contributions to science and the physical economy of Russia go
far beyond that, however; the Russian editor of the text we
publish below characterizes him as a ``scientist and polymath,
public figure, chemist, physical chemist, physicist,
metrologist, economist, engineer, geologist, meteorologist,
teacher, balloonist, instrument maker,'' as well as a professor
at St. Petersburg University and a corresponding member of the
Imperial St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. An outspoken
opponent of British free trade, Mendeleyev was an advocate of
the American System of economics, as propounded by German-
American economist Friedrich List. He attended the 1876 U.S.
Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, which was organized by
the circles of Henry Carey (who had been an economic advisor to
President Abraham Lincoln). Mendeleyev authored, among other r