This article focuses on three unique products circulating in the eighteenth-century marketplace – castor, mammoth tusks, and asbestos – and highlights the role of naturalists working for the Royal Society in London and at the Russian Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg in promoting the consumption of these goods. Naturalists’ scientific investigations of these products were essential to distinguish and identify the quality (and, correspondingly, the ideal price) of Siberian commodities as compared to similar, or even equivalent, commodities from other regions. When these products were later discovered in the British colonies, the scientific debates between London and St. Petersburg only gained a new urgency, inspiring arguments about authenticity and efficaciousness.

中文翻译：

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西伯利亚的“自然奇观”能否被取代？十八世纪的生物勘探

本文重点介绍了 18 世纪市场上流通的三种独特产品——蓖麻、猛犸象牙和石棉——并强调了为伦敦皇家学会和圣彼得堡俄罗斯科学院工作的博物学家在促进这些商品的消费。博物学家对这些产品的科学研究对于区分和确定西伯利亚商品的质量（以及相应的理想价格）与来自其他地区的类似甚至同等商品至关重要。当这些产品后来在英国殖民地被发现时，伦敦和圣彼得堡之间的科学辩论才变得更加紧迫，激发了关于真实性和有效性的争论。