56 FOEESTRY IN EASTERN RUSSIA. 



' Speaking about sermons in stones, you find in parts of 

 the Ural boulder stones of 200,000 and 300,000 pounds 

 weight, some embedded in the earth, some lying on 

 the surface, some piled one on another. How did they 

 get there ? How have such vast masses been moved ? 

 How have they been worn so round, and polished so 

 smooth, at 3000 and 5000 feet above the present level of 

 the sea ? ' 



Alittle sketch was given to meby him incidentallyof culti- 

 vated ground, which is in keeping with the preceding refer- 

 ence to the natural scenery of the region. If my readers 

 will glance at it, I believe it wij] gratify them ; but it is 

 associated with incidents in the life of one of our country- 

 men who made it what it is, and notices of him suggest 

 notices of others likewise engaged in engineering opera- 

 tions there, all of them to me so full of interest that 

 unless I hold a firm rein I may be carried further from 

 the forests than may seem to be consistent with our 

 professed aim, though it would be difficult to say why a 

 forester or a student of forest science should not enjoy a 

 good story as fully as any other man. Let me premise 

 that not a few of our countrymen have been employed in 

 these works, occuping places of trust, with corresponding 

 emolument. He wrote to me : — 



' One day I received from my employer a note inviting 

 me to take a drive with him and his friends, the Razanoffs, to 

 a datch, or country house of their's, some fourteen versts 

 out of Ekaterineburg. There were four of us. Each of 

 my companions that day was a millionaire. I wonder if 

 English millionaires would keep company with their 

 servants. It was a delightful day, and a most picturesque 

 drive on the main Siberian road to one of the most lovely 

 scenes I ever put eyes upon. There were long and shady 

 avenues of silver fir, weeping birch, fragrant spruce, 

 flowering lime, graceful poplar, and that most beautiful of 

 at all trees, the Siberian mountain ash. There was park 

 and plain, lake and waterfall, gurgling founiains and 

 crystal, teaming with aquatic plants and sportive fish. 



