444 THE JEANNETTE ARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



is irregularly built and extends over a considerable area of 

 ground, the government buildings being situated about a 

 mile from the center. By government buildings is meant 

 merely the storehouses for grain and bread, and for the skins 

 which are received for taxes. These buildings are of logs, 

 with great heavy doors, and padlocks about the size of an 

 ordinary valise, while the key is a load in itself. 



I paid a visit to the storehouses while in Sredne, to wit- 

 ness the process of turning over the property to the new 

 prefet or ispravnik, as he is termed, but it was a very unin- 

 teresting process and the weather so intensely cold that I 

 did not stay long. A gang of laborers, heavily clad in skiu 

 clothing, were running around with bundles on their shoul- 

 ders and dumping them upon one of the platforms of a pair 

 of immense balance scales, such as I thought had long since 

 become obsolete. The beam was suspended in the middle, 

 and had a platform a yard square hung by the corners to 

 either end of it. On one side were piled bundles of skins 

 or grain in cow skin bags, and on the other were heaped up 

 big iron weights about the size of a hundred pound shell, 

 with handles. It looked as if the articles to be weighed 

 were exactly counterbalanced by the proper amount of iron 

 weights, and then they guessed how much iron there was. 



I saw another curious balance here, a sort of combination 

 of the beam with the steelyard, which is for weighing small 

 articles. It has a scoop suspended from one end of the 

 graduated steel rod, in which is placed the article to be 

 weighed ; on the other end of the rod is a fixed weight, and 

 the balance is obtained by sliding the rod along the ring 

 that holds it in suspension. I had been used to seeing the 

 weight moved, and it was a novelty to see the whole beam 

 sliding along instead. Pacing up and down near the scales 

 with a gun upon his shoulder was a Cossack, who looked 

 strangely bundled up in furs and under arms. Near the 

 beam stood the new ispravnik, wrapped up so that nothing 

 could be seen of him except his eyes. I do not remember 

 ever having felt the cold more keenly, than during the first 



