Alexander Postels

When the two countries agreed on 54°40′N as the southern limit of Russian claims, Czar Nicolas I changed their orders in 1826 to an extended three-year survey of the Russian-American and Asian coasts.

On board were also the naturalist Karl Heinrich Mertens (1796–1830), who died in Kronstadt shortly after his return from Iceland and another trip on the Senyavin, and the ornithologist Baron von Kittlitz.

[2] The expedition was called the largest and most productive voyage of discovery of the era,[3] and brought back some 4 000 natural history specimens, including mammals, insects, birds, plants, and minerals.

During the voyage Postels depicted more than 100 seaweeds or marine algae from the northern Pacific in "Illustrationes algarum in itinere circa orbem jussu Imperatoriis Nicolai I" published in St. Petersburg in 1840.

[4] Postels was elected an Honorary Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences on 14 January 1866 and invited to act as curator of the Mineralogical Museum.