It has constantly nearly three hundred pupils, all supported at the
expense of the government. The establishment is the geological mirror
of the entire empire. The mountains of Lapland and the Caucasus,
Finland and the Valdai, the vast Ourals, the Altai range and the peaks
of Nerchinsk and the Baikal, Siberia and Kamchatka, in fact every part
of Russia, have been drawn upon to fill its museum. Not only have they
contributed, but they steadily continue to do so, year after year, as
fast as new discoveries are made; and the government spares no pains
or expense to make the collection the most perfect in the world.
[Sidenote: THE PRODUCE IN RUSSIA.]
Gold, silver, lead, iron, tin, copper, and other metallic ores are
there in abundance, and afford the student the most ample opportunity
for study. In the collection of semi-precious or valuable stones there
is a bewildering array. We find the topaz of all shades; we find
rubies, emeralds, beryls, amethysts, agates, turquoise, onyx, garnets,
aqua-marines, malachites, marbles, lapis lazuli, porphyries, and other
stones in endless variety. As an illustration of the great variety of
the mineral products of Russia, let me mention a little circumstance.
On my desk, and lying before me as I write, is a paper weight I
brought home from Siberia. It is a small mosaic, perhaps three inches
by five, and contains no less than twenty-one kinds of variegated
marbles from the Altai mountains. One piece is white, and another is
nearly black, and there is great variety between the two extremes.
Almost the only mineral products not known to exist in Russia is
diamonds. They have been found in a few instances, but in very small
numbers, and under circumstances that led to a strong suspicion that
the places of discovery had been “salted.”
[Sidenote: MINING SCHOOL AT ST. PETERSBURG.]
In order to facilitate the study of the pupils in this school of
mines, and make it as practical as possible, all the machinery and
apparatus used in a mine has been arranged in an immense museum—some
in the form of models, and others of their full size. Great mechanical
skill has been displayed in the preparation of this machinery; whether
in the shape of models or of full size, the working is perfect, and a
student can easily understand from them the labor of the miner, and
its result.
Underneath the immense building there is a reproduction of one of the
mines at Perm, one of the cities of the Oural mountains. The utmost
care has been taken to make the reproduction perfect. You visit the
place exactly as you would visit a real mine, and you are shown
through it by the light of torches. You have the same temperature that
you would have in the mine of which this is a copy, and the same kind
of atmosphere.
The character of the earth, the changes of color, the succession
of layers of earth, rock, and ore, the machinery, the tools of the
workmen, all lead a visitor to suppose he is really in a mine, and
that the actual work has only been suspended a few hours while the
laborers have been allowed a half holiday.
The great mining centers of Russia are in the Oural and Altai
mountains, especially the former. The wealth of the Ourals in minerals
was almost unknown until the time of Peter the Great, when he sent
some engineers to make an examination. Previous to that time some
gold had been found, and brought to Moscow; and it was known that the
former rulers of the kingdom of Kazan derived much of their wealth
from the gold mines.
But hardly anything was known of the other mineral riches of the
mountain range. It did not take a long time for sharp-eyed engineers
to discover the existence of iron and copper, and further research
showed that they were to be found in large quantities. As soon as the
facts were known, the government determined to work the mines on its
own responsibility, until their riches could be demonstrated, and
private parties induced to operate on their own account and risk.
[Sidenote: THE FIRST MINERAL EXPLORATION.]
The first mineral exploration of this region was made by Nikite
Demidoff, in 1701 or 1702. Peter the Great sent him there from Tula,
a place which has since become of considerable importance as a
manufacturing center. He had a very clear head for his business, and
went at it in earnest, and the result is seen to-day in the immense
prosperity of the mines. As a reward for his industry, the emperor
gave him a grant of territory amounting to nearly five thousand square
miles, with whatever mineral or other wealth might be found there.
This princely estate has remained ever since in the possession of the
Demidoff family, and has made it the richest family of all Russia,
with the exception of the Romanoffs (the Imperial House). It has
been admirably controlled, and the owners have spared no pains or
expense to secure the most intelligent direction and management. They
have conducted everything on a liberal scale; the towns and villages
which they have built up are among the prettiest, neatest, and most
comfortable in all Russia.
In this last particular they are worthy of imitation everywhere, and
many great establishments in Europe and America would be, to-day,
more prosperous if they followed the example of the Demidoffs. There
are some prominent instances of manufacturing or mining prosperity
growing in part from an attention to the wants of the workman, the
education of his children, and a general regard for his welfare. The
most notable one now occurring to me is that of the Fairbanks Scale
Works in Vermont, whose products have obtained a world-wide fame. They
have built up upon what was the wilderness, a prosperous town, with
schools, libraries, lecture and reading rooms, and they have given
inducements for their workmen to be industrious and economical, and
become house-owners in their own right. The Fairbanks Brothers never
heard, perhaps, of the Demidoffs, but they have followed almost the
same course, and with the same result.
Every year the Demidoffs select several of the brightest youths in
each village, and send them to the mining schools of St. Petersburg,
and also to France, England, and other countries. These spend several
years away from the Ourals, and when they return they bring a stock of
very valuable knowledge which is of great practical use.
In my journey through Russia, I visited the mining regions of the
Oural, and also of the Altai Mountains, and was greatly interested in
what I saw.
[Sidenote: THE CASTLE OF THE DEMIDOFFS.]
The castle of the Demidoffs, as it is called, stands on the bank of
a small river in the Ourals, at the town of Neviansk. Part of it was
built by the elder Demidoff; it has since been enlarged, so that it
is now a goodly sized palace. In it is a large saloon with fresco
paintings by an Italian artist who was specially engaged for the work,
and it has several rooms which would make large halls anywhere else.
The furniture was made expressly for the house, and is renewed from
time to time, whenever it becomes antiquated or faded. Several rooms
are kept for the use of travelers, and everything, including the
table, is furnished free of charge.
You may arrive there at any hour of the day or night, and find a
warm welcome, and a room ready for you. You are fed with a most
liberal hand, and may have the best wines known to the European
market—champagne, port, sherry, anything and everything you choose.
Stay as long as you please, go where you wish to, and you have no bill
to pay. Let us hope for a speedy adoption of this Demidoff custom
everywhere, with the assurance that it will be highly popular with the
majority of visitors, and tend to a large increase in their number.
The principal mining town of the Demidoffs is on the river Tagil, and
is known as Nijne Tagilsk. It has a population of about twenty-five
thousand, and contains many fine buildings, including churches,
hospitals for the workmen, schools, academies, dwellings for the
directors and sub-directors, and an immense pile in which are the
offices of the administration.
The smelting furnaces, forges, rolling mills, machine shops, and
the like, are on an enormous scale, and are surpassed by very few
establishments anywhere in the world. Much of the machinery is made on
the spot, and the facilities are such as to astonish any visitor, even
when he knows beforehand that he will see something colossal.
All the smelting is done with charcoal, and consequently the charcoal
burners are an important element of the population. The forests of
the estate cover many hundreds of square miles, and are managed with
great care. Not a tree is cut without the order of an officer, and
the work is so arranged that the young trees are protected until they
are of suitable size. When a piece of ground has been cleared, it is
replanted, and in eighty years it can be cleared again.
[Sidenote: THE METALS FOUND.]
The iron ore is about a mile from the town, and near the top of a
hill, so that it can be rolled directly into the works with very
little labor. It is of the kind known as magnetic ore, and the supply
is simply inexhaustible. It is worked in an open quarry, no tunneling
or shafting being needed, and as the vein is four hundred feet wide,
eighty feet thick, and a mile or more in length, there is no danger
that the supply will be exhausted for some thousands of years. And if
it should be, there are other and larger deposits not far away.
Copper is also found in this vicinity, and not more than two miles
from the iron mine. It was first discovered about the beginning of the
present century, and has since been worked to great advantage.
The most remarkable product of copper is the substance known as
malachite. It is found in various parts of the world wherever there
are mines of copper, but nowhere else in such quantities as in the
Oural mountains. Malachite is nothing more nor less than an oxide
of copper. The chemists know exactly how it is formed, but they
cannot make it any more than they can make the diamond, though they
understand perfectly well the composition of that highly-prized stone.
Certain salts in the earth mingle with the copper ore and the water
that finds its way through the earth, and these ingredients, soaking
slowly downward into crevices and hollows in the rock, form the
substance of which the Russians make so much use.
[Sidenote: HOW MALACHITE WAS FOUND.]
In 1885 the largest mass of malachite ever known was found on the
Demidoff estate. The miners, who were working a vein of copper,
found some shreds or strips of copper extending downward, and the
superintendent of the mine ordered them to follow these shreds, in
hopes of striking another vein. The work was pushed forward, or
rather downward, and the stray threads of ore were traced in all
their windings. Two hundred and eighty feet below the mine, the
shreds disappeared, and the superintendent was about to give up the
enterprise in disgust and despair, when the men suddenly came upon a
huge mass of malachite. It was broken up and taken to the surface, and
the aggregate weight of the mass was estimated at seventy tons! It was
this lot that supplied the most of the malachite in the Church of St.
Isaac, and from it, also, was made the enormous vase which the Emperor
of Russia sent to His Holiness the Pope.
We use malachite for jewelry, and think it very good; those of us
who have been in St. Petersburg will recall the Church of St. Isaac,
where there are whole columns apparently of solid malachite. I say
apparently, for those columns are of granite, with a malachite
veneering an inch or two in thickness, for the reason that the
material does not come in sufficiently solid shape to be used for
making columns. It is a good deal honey-combed, and there are numerous
vacant places in a large block of it. There was a block of malachite
in the Paris Exposition which measured something like seven feet in
length by four in width, and there was a nicely-polished spot on one
side, a couple of feet in length, and a foot and a half in width.
This was said to be one of the largest solid blocks of the material
in Russia, and it was regarded as a great curiosity by many thousands
of visitors. At the Philadelphia Exhibition in 1876, there was much
interest manifested in the Russian department, in consequence of the
fine display of this article. There was a fire-place whose mantel
and side-pieces were solid slabs of malachite. Then there were two
or three large vases and other ornamental pieces, all of the same
material; and very rich they were. People were never weary of gazing
upon these things and commenting on their beauty.
[Sidenote: RUSSIAN SHEET-IRON.]
There are several other mining estates besides this in the Oural
mountains, and some of them are nearly as extensive. There the
government has establishments of its own, where it makes its machinery
for ships of war and other purposes, and manufactures cannon and
cannon shot, and many other things which are constructed of iron
or steel. One of the private works which I visited was that of
Issetskoi, where they make iron of peculiar toughness and polish.
Nearly all the “Russia sheet-iron” which is so popular in America,
for the manufacture of stove pipes and parlor stoves, comes from
this establishment. It is capable of being rolled to the thinness of
letter-paper, and will stand a vast amount of bending before it breaks.
At one of the mining and manufacturing works in this region, there is
an establishment for the production of cutlery, and a vast amount is
annually turned out. Its sword-blades, knives, and other things are of
great fineness, but generally they are not as nicely finished as the
products of Birmingham and Sheffield. About 1848, a process of making
Damascus steel was invented by General Anossoff, who was then in
charge of the works, and since then, blades that could be bent double,
without danger of breaking, have been turned out in great numbers.
Some of these have found their way abroad, but the government does not
facilitate their sale outside the country.
[Sidenote: EKATERINENBERG.]
In the Oural mountains, on the great road from Russia to Siberia, is
the town or city of Ekaterinenberg, which was founded by the Empress
Catherine II, the imperial lady who became famous, among other things,
for her peculiar and rather summary ways of making love. Catherine
was stately and not ill-looking; the town which perpetuates her name,
perpetuates also her characteristics. I drove into it one Christmas
morning, after a long ride over the dreary steppes of Siberia, and
as I first looked upon its broad streets and the lake around which
its principal edifices are built, I thought I had not seen anything
lovelier in the line of Russian towns.
It has a population exceeding twenty thousand. Five-sixths of the
inhabitants are connected in some way with the mining interests of
the surrounding region, and possibly the occupations of the remaining
sixth are not far removed from them. All the copper money circulated
in Russia is coined here, and the place does a large business in
lapidary work. Amethysts, beryls, rubies, emeralds, and other gems are
cut here, and so extensive is the business that the servants at the
hotels, and itinerant merchants on the street pester you to purchase
these stones, and dozens of others. Seals in countless variety can be
had here, and wonderfully cheap when compared with the prices of the
same articles in Moscow or St. Petersburg. The government has here a
large lapidary establishment, and all its products go, or are supposed
to go, to the Imperial palace at St. Petersburg. From this place come
the great majority of the semi-precious stones which are given away by
the emperor. And hereby hangs a tale.
During the reign of the Emperor Nicholas, some children who were
playing in the dry bed of a brook several miles from Ekaterinenberg,
found some curious stones which they carried home. These lay around
the cottage for some time, and were not thought to be of any value,
but one day an officer happened to see them and recognized their
character. They were sent to the government establishment, and there
disappeared.
They were emerald crystals of unusually fine character, and by law
and custom were the property of the emperor. Instead of going to St.
Petersburg, they were sent to Germany, and sold, and in course of time
were bought by one of the princes of the reigning family, as a present
for his wife.
Some years later, she was at St. Petersburg, on some grand occasion,
and wore these emeralds. The empress admired them, and asked where
they came from.
“They are from Siberia,” was the reply.
The empress was astonished, and communicated the fact to the emperor.
There was a great row at once. An officer was sent to Ekaterinenberg
to search the house of the director, and all other persons connected
with the imperial factory. He found several stones of great value in
the house of the director, and as the latter could not explain, he was
arrested and sent to prison, where he died a few years later. Many
people believed, and still believe, that he was innocent, and that the
theft was committed at St. Petersburg, by some member of the imperial
family.
Strange to say, very few emeralds have ever been discovered in that
region, and none since that time of equal value with those that had
such a curious history.
[Sidenote: GOLD MINING IN RUSSIA.]
The principal gold mining of Russia is carried on in the Asiatic
portion of the empire. Some deposits have been found of enormous
richness, and many fortunes have been made by mining for this
precious ore. Formerly, the business was entirely in the hands of
the government, but in the last twenty years it has been given up to
private enterprise, the government exacting a tax of fifteen per cent.
on all gold taken out. In some districts the government continues to
manage the business, but it only does this where it cannot let it out
to advantage.
The processes employed are various. In some of the mines the earth
is washed by means of machinery, much like that used in California,
but with a greater expenditure of labor in proportion to the amount
handled. In the valleys of the streams which flow into the Yenesei and
other rivers, there are many mining establishments; there are others
near Lake Baikal, and others again on some of the rivers flowing into
the Amoor.
The government mines are worked by convicts, who receive no pay. Only
their board, clothes, and lodging are supplied to them, and these
are not always of the best quality. The private miners employ their
workmen in the villages and towns; they begin operations as early as
possible in the spring, and close in the latter part of September. To
obtain a concession for working a mine, the applicant must either be
a hereditary nobleman, or a merchant of the second guild or class. He
obtains a concession five miles long, and about six hundred feet wide,
on the borders of and including a stream, so as to give him as much
water privilege as possible.
[Sidenote: HOW THE MINING IS DONE.]
When a claimant has an allotment, he must work it at least one year
out of every three, under pain of forfeiture, and there are other
requirements with which he must comply.
There is generally a heavy outlay for buildings and machinery before
the mining begins. To get at the pay-dirt, as it is called in
California, the surface earth must be stripped off, and sometimes this
stripping is twenty or thirty feet deep. Holes or shafts are sunk
to ascertain the depth of the stripping and pay-earth, and from the
amount of gold in the latter it is very easy to form an estimate of
the probabilities of profit.
Some of the concerns employ two or three thousand workmen, and half as
many horses. The cost of horses is the heaviest item of expense, as
the loss is very great, and to this must be added the cost of keeping
the animals. It often happens that the hay, provisions, and everything
else must be carried two or three hundred miles, and consequently the
capitalist who goes into the mining business in Siberia, must have a
long and deep and well-filled purse to start with.
In these mining establishments, the work is very severe. The bell is
rung at half past two in the morning, and a man must be at his post by
three. He gets half an hour each for breakfast and tea, and an hour
for dinner; he works until nine o’clock at night, and takes his supper
when he gets through. If he is in debt to his employer, and the latter
generally manages to have him so, he works every day—Sundays, Saints’
days, and all—through the season.
The task set is for five men and two horses to break up and cart away
two cubic fathoms of earth per day, and they may quit work whenever
they have done it. Or they may work “extra,” and get pretty high wages
for it, and altogether a man can earn not far from thirty dollars a
month by making long and late hours.
[Sidenote: HOW THE MINERS ARE PROVIDED FOR.]
It is absolutely necessary, for the interest of the employer, that
he should give his men good and abundant food, provide them with
comfortable lodgings, and have a hospital for those who become ill.
Sometimes two or more establishments unite to hire a surgeon, and
in this case he makes a daily round to see if any one needs his
services. The proprietors also maintain stores where they supply their
workmen, and it is not considered respectable to charge any profit on
the goods beyond enough to pay the cost of transportation and handling.
The workmen are a thriftless lot, generally, and rarely save anything.
When their season is over, they proceed to the large towns, and there
waste their substance in riotous living. The spring comes and finds
them without a copeck, and possibly in debt, from which their only
exit is by hiring out to a gold miner, and getting the advance of a
month’s pay which custom has established.
XI.
A DAY IN POMPEII.
A VISIT TO POMPEII.—NEAPOLITAN HACKMEN.—AN INTERESTING
ADVENTURE.—HOW TO AVOID A QUARREL.—BEGGARS.—BEGGARY AS A FINE
ART.—A PICTURESQUE SCENE.—MAKING MACARONI.—TRICKS OF AN OLD
ROOSTER.—POMPEII.—ITS HISTORY.—DISCOVERY OF THE BURIED CITY.—A
SCENE IN THE STREETS.—AN ANCIENT BAKERY.—HOW THE MILLS WERE
TURNED.—INVESTIGATING AN OVEN.—A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.—PRESENT
CONDITION OF THE HOUSES.—ADVERTISING IN OLD TIMES.—POMPEIIAN
PERSONALS.—A PICTURE OF THE DESTRUCTION.—OBSCENE OBJECTS IN THE
CITY.
On a pleasant spring morning several years ago, I started from Naples
to pay a visit to the ruins of Pompeii. Our party consisted of four
persons; and our first work was to engage a carriage, as we thought
the carriage road would be preferable to the railway. Engaging a
carriage in Naples is a tax upon the patience equal to some of the
trials which were visited upon Job. I am not quite certain that Job
would have remained patient after a contest with Neapolitan hackmen.
Boils would be nothing compared to it.
One of the school-books that I studied in my younger days made the
assertion, “A horse is a noble animal.” I do not question the nobility
of the horse, and his possession of blue blood; but of one thing I
am certain, and that is, a great majority of those who associate
with him are the reverse of noble. Hackmen, all the world over, are
proverbial for dishonesty. Horse-jockeys are never mentioned as types
of human perfection; and the history of the race-track is the history
of a great deal of fraud. If the horse is a noble beast, it must be
that his nobility and excellence of character develop the opposite
qualities among his human intimates.
[Sidenote: A PICTURESQUE HACKMAN.]