THE TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE. 281 



botanical and zoological museums. It boasts of its 

 electric light and telephones, and it parades before you 

 rows of massive buildings, which are in reality composed 

 of brick and stucco, but which look like stone. It 

 provides fine shops for you, and is building arcades ; it 

 has theatres and hotels, and, last but not least, it is 

 possessed of a technological institute of which any city 

 in the world might be proud. This latter building is 

 magnificent. It is four storeys high, and covers a large 

 area of ground on both sides of a wide street. Drawing 

 and elementary instruction had been started for three 

 years ; chemistry was being begun when I was there, 

 and physical science and mineralogy were shortly to be 

 embarked upon. Buildings for engineering were being 

 added, and altogether it was expected that additions 

 would be made during the next five years. The whole 

 institute is lighted with electric light and artificially 

 heated, and the laboratories are fitted with all the 

 latest appliances from German manufactories. 



I have said much that is good about Tomsk : there 

 are some things that are bad also. The shops are in- 

 ordinately expensive, and the streets and roads recall 

 the horrors of Constantinople. But on the whole Tomsk 

 has every right to be proud. Its 50,000 inhabitants 

 place it alongside of Irkutsk, as the two most popular 

 cities in Siberia, and its university will ensure its re- 

 maining one of the chief cities of the country, even 

 should its present unfortunate position involve its 

 decline in commercial activity before others more for- 

 tunately placed. 



