MENDELEEFF 127 



We have many pictures of Russian life in Siberia drawn 

 by capable writers Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Stepniak, 

 Lermontoff, Dostoieffsky, Tourgeneff,Kompert,Tikhomirov, 

 and others that little is required to describe it. It 

 has been called the land " of persecution, stripes, murder, 

 enforced penury and hunger, with debarred constitutional, 

 social, and other rights." Will the Duma raise the people 

 to the level of the masses of free countries, such as 

 England and America? 



The hero of this essay, Dmitri Ivanovitch Mendele'eff 

 (Men-de-/a?/-ef as the Russians call him, with the accent 

 on the penultimate), was born on 7th February 1834, at 

 Tobolsk, at the conjunction of the rivers Tobol and Irtish 

 in Siberia, and in later years became one of the most 

 famous of chemists. His father was Principal of the 

 Tobolsk Gymnasium, and here the son was educated 

 until he entered the University of St Petersburg, aided by 

 funds provided by a benefactor. Even in the inhospitable 

 region of Tobolsk, the Government of the Czars had 

 established a gymnasium, and there the great philosopher 

 began his education. Thence he went to St Petersburg, 

 and as far back as 1856 he graduated as a doctor of 

 chemistry. Later he studied, at Paris, under Adolphe 

 Wurtz. For a short time he was a teacher at Simferopol 

 in the Crimea ; and at Odessa he practised as a chemist. 

 In 1859 he went to Heidelberg, where he established a 

 private laboratory and did excellent work. In 1861, 



