Iulii Mikhailovich Shokalskii

Born Oct. 5 (17), 1856, in St. Petersburg; died Mar. 26,1940, in Leningrad. Soviet oceanographer, geographer, and cartographer. Honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939; corresponding member, 1923).

After graduating from the Marine Academy, Shokal’skii worked at the Main Geophysical Observatory and Main Hydro-graphic Administration. From 1910 to 1930 he was a professor at the Naval Academy; beginning in 1925, he was also a professor at Leningrad State University. He served as president of the Geographic Society of the USSR from 1917 to 1931.

Shokal’skii’s principal works dealt with meteorology, hydrology, and oceanography. From 1923 to 1927, Shokal’skii led an oceanographic expedition in the Black Sea and studied the Northern Sea Route and ways of developing the route. He headed projects summarizing hypsometric materials and compiled a relief map of Russia. With A. A. Tillo, he developed a cartometric technique and applied it to calculating the surface of the Asiatic part of Russia and the lengths of the most important rivers. Shokal’skii was the compiler and editor of a series of general geographic maps and atlases. Twelve geographic features, including a strait between islands of Severnaia Zemlia, an island at the entrance to Ob’ Bay, and an island in the Kara Strait, have been named after Shokal’skii.