296 TEE GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 



has smelted since it came into being in 1870 the very 

 respectable amount of 64 3 1 tons of gold, having a 

 probable value of upwards of £80,000,000 sterling. 

 And now, to show how its citizens have thriven, it 

 is about to erect a statue to the late Emperor at a 

 cost of 300,000 roubles or £31,915. 



Many of the buildings are fine structures, the main 

 streets and market-square provide splendid shops, and 

 the cathedral, standing somewhat apart in an open 

 space, is magnificent, and it is only when you reach 

 the slums and descend abruptly from well-kept streets 

 and stately mansions to cesspools, dust - heaps, and 

 squalid shanties that you remember that you are in 

 an Asian town. One night I witnessed a performance 

 at the theatre, and the acting struck me as very 

 good — and indeed I should be a good judge, for I 

 understood no word of what was said ! The museum 

 of the East Siberian Branch of the Russian Geographical 

 Society is a fine building, and contains much that is 

 worth seeing. I saw specimens of marble, lapis-lazuli, 

 coal, graphite, and other minerals from the district ; 

 mammoth bones and tusks ; the skeleton of a pre- 

 historic man ; shells, insects, snakes, fish, and, what 

 is especially striking, the very fine collection of 

 Buddhist specialities. The library is well stocked with 

 periodicals from English, American, German, and French 

 societies, and contains books in many languages besides 

 Bussian. 



Perhaps the object of chief interest to the traveller 

 is the gold-smelting laboratory. Originally the yearly 

 average weight of gold which passed through the 

 laboratory at Irkutsk amounted to 54,000 lb. In 

 recent years, however, laboratories have been estab- 

 lished at Nicholaewsk and Blagovestchensk of blood- 

 stained fame, and yet a third is being created at 



