BELL, JOHN (1691-1780), Scottish traveller, was born at Antermony, in Scotland, in 1691, and studied medicine. In 1714 he set out for St. Petersburg, where, through the introduction of a countryman, he was nominated medical attendant to Valensky, recently appointed to the Persian embassy, with whom he travelled from 1715 to 1718. The next four years he spent in an embassy to China, passing through Siberia and the great Tatar deserts. He had scarcely rested from this last journey when he was sum moned to attend Peter the Great in his perilous expedition to Derbend and the Caspian Gates. In 1738 he was sent by the Russian government on a mission to Constantinople. In 1747 he retired to his estate of Antermony, where he spent the remainder of his life. His Travels, published at Glasgow in 1763, went through many editions, and are reprinted in Pinkerton's Voyages and Travels (vol. vii., 1811). A complete French translation appeared in 1766.