SIBERIA— FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 



217 



ters as the laborers. The former enjoy a net profit of eight or ten roubles per 

 solotnik, and all the working expenses are of course put to the charge of the 

 contract labor ; and the latter earn a great deal of money, according to their in- 

 dustry or good-luck, for when fortune favors an artell, its share may amount to 

 a considerable sum. During Hofmann's stay at the Birussa, each workman of 

 a certain artell earned in one afternoon 72 roubles, and the Sunday's work of 

 another of these associations gave to each of its members 105 roubles, or £4. 

 The artisans — who, though employed in a gold-mine, are not engaged in dig- 

 ging or washing the auriferous sand — are also rewarded from time to time 

 by a day's free-labor in places which are known to be rich. On one of these 

 occasions a Cossack on the Oktolyk received 300 roubles for his share of the 

 gold that was washed out of 49 wheelbarrows of sand. These of course are 

 extraordinary cases, but they show how much a workman may gain ; and be- 

 ing of course exaggerated by report, are the chief inducements which attract 

 the workmen, and keep them to their duty. 



If the free-labor is unproductive, many of the workmen desert or give up 

 free-labor altogether, and in both cases the master is a loser. To prevent this, 

 it is customary, in many of the diggings, to pay the workmen a fixed sum for 

 their extra work. 



At the end of the season the workmen are paid off, and receive provisions 

 for their home-journey. Generally, the produce of their summer's labor is 

 spent, in the first villages they reach, in drinking and gambling ; so that, to be 

 able to return to their families, they are obliged to bind themselves anew for 

 the next season, and to receive hand-money from the agent, who, knowing their 

 weakness, is generally on the spot to take advantage of it. After spending a 

 long winter full of want and privations, they return to the Taiga in spring, and 

 thus, through their own folly, their life is spent in constant misery and hard 

 labor. 



During the winter the digging is deserted, except by an under-overseer and 

 a few workmen, who make the necessary preparations for the next campaign, 

 receive and warehouse the provisions as they arrive, and guard the property 

 against thieves or wanton destruction. The upper-overseer or director, mean- 

 while, is fully occupied at the residence in forwarding the provisions and stores 

 that have arrived there during the summer to the mine, in making the neces- 

 sary purchases for the next year, in sending his agents about the country to 

 engage new workmen ; and thus the winter is, in fact, his busiest time. With 

 the last sledge transport he returns to the digging, to receive the workmen as 

 they arrive, and to see that all is ready for the summer. As his situation is 

 one of great trust and responsibility, he enjoys a considerable salary. Maes- 

 nikow, for instance, paid his chief director 40,000 roubles a year ; and 6000 or 

 8000 roubles, besides free station, and a percentage of the gold produced, is 

 the ordinary emolument. 



It is thus evident that the expenses of a Siberian gold-mine are enormous, 

 but when fortune favors the undertaker he is amply rewarded for his outlay ; 

 an annual produce of 10, 15, or 20 pouds of gold is by no means uncommon. 

 In the year 1845, 458 workmen employed in the gold-mine of Mariinsk, be- 



