Editing Peter Kropotkin (section)

=== Siberia ===

For his tour of service, in 1862 he chose the [[Amur Cossacks]] in east [[Siberia]], an undesirable post that would let him study the technical mathematics of artillery, travel, live in nature, and achieve financial independence from his father.{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|pp=28–29}} He developed a firm worldview of compassion for the poor and contrasted the pride and dignity of the yeoman peasant farmers against the indignities of serfdom.{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|p=29}} He wrote approvingly of the cultivated [[Transbaikalia]] governor-general [[Boleslav Kukel]], to whom Kropotkin reported.{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|pp=29–30}} Kukel engaged Kropotkin in prison reform and city self-governance projects that the central government ultimately denied. The exiled poet and political prisoner [[Mikhail Larionovitch Mikhailov]] introduced Kropotkin to anarchism by recommending he read an essay by [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]].{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|p=30}} Kropotkin's brother came to live with him in [[Irkutsk]].{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|pp=13, 32}}<!-- Osofsky gives conflicting years so don't use --> 

After Kukel's ouster in early 1863, Kropotkin found solace in geographical work.{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|pp=30–31}} He led a disguised reconnaissance expedition to find a direct route through [[Manchuria]] from [[Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai|Chita]] to [[Vladivostok]] the next year. He explored the [[East Siberian Mountains]] in the north the year after. The mountain measurements from his 1866 [[Olekminsk]]-[[Vitimsky|Vitimsk]] expedition confirmed his Manchurian hypothesis that the Siberian area from the [[Ural Mountains]] to the [[Pacific Ocean]] was a [[plateau]] and not a [[plain]]. This discovery of the [[Patom Plateau|Patom]] and [[Vitim Plateau]]s won him a gold medal from the [[Russian Geographical Society]] and led to the commercialization of the [[Lena gold fields]]. A [[Kropotkin Range|range of mountains in this region]] was later named for him.{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|p=31}}

Kropotkin covered Siberia for St. Petersburg newspapers since his arrival, including the condition of the Polish political exiles who participated in the unsuccessful 1866 [[Baikal Insurrection]].{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|pp=31–32}} Kropotkin secured a promise from the governor-general to suspend the prisoners' death sentences, which was reneged upon. Disillusioned, Kropotkin and his brother resolved to leave the military. His time in Siberia taught him to appreciate peasant social organization and convinced him that administrative reform was an ineffectual means to improve social conditions.{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|pp=13, 32}}<!-- "prepared to become an anarchist"-->

{{Location map+|Russia
|caption    = Russian locales of Kropotkin's early career
|width      = 360
|float      = left
|relief     =
|places     =
{{Location map~|Russia
|label      = Vitim
|label_size =
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|lat_deg    = 59.433333
|lon_deg    = 112.566667
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{{Location map~|Russia
|label      = Chita
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|lat_deg    = 52.05
|lon_deg    = 113.466667
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{{Location map~|Russia
|label      = Vladivostok
|position   = bottom
|lat_deg    = 43.133333
|lon_deg    = 131.9
}}
{{Location map~|Russia
|label      = St.&nbsp;Petersburg
|position   = right
|lat_deg    = 59.9375
|lon_deg    = 30.308611
}}
{{Location map~|Russia
|label      = Moscow
|position   = right
|lat_deg    = 55.755833
|lon_deg    = 37.617222
}}
}}

After five years in Siberia, Kropotkin and his brother moved to St. Petersburg, where they continued their schooling and academic work. Kropotkin took a position with the Russian [[interior ministry]] with no duties. He studied physics, math, and geography at the university.{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|pp=13, 32–33}} After presenting his Vitim expedition findings, Kropotkin accepted the Russian Geographical Society's part-time offer of its Physical Geography section Secretaryship. Kropotkin translated [[Herbert Spencer]]'s work for additional income. He continued to develop a theory, which he considered his best scientific contribution, that the East Siberian mountains were part of a large plateau and not independent ridges. Kropotkin participated in an 1870 polar expedition plan that postulated the existence of what was later discovered as the [[Franz Josef Land]] Arctic archipelago.{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|p=33}}

In early 1871, he was commissioned to study the [[Pleistocene|Ice Age]] in Scandinavian geography, in which Kropotkin developed theories of the glaciation of Europe and the [[glacial lakes]] of its northeast.{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|pp=33–34}} His father died later that year and Kropotkin inherited a wealthy estate in [[Tambov]]. Kropotkin turned down the Geographical Society's offer of its general secretary position, instead choosing work on his Ice Age data and interest in bettering the lives of peasants.{{sfn|Osofsky|1979|p=34}}