rence. But in Russia, the government, that is to say the emperor or his family, must meddle with everything. All the manufactories are imperial, and generally under the superintendence of some Englishman or Scotchman, who is raised to the rank of a general officer. Thus we find an imperial cotton manufactory superintended by General Wilson, an imperial glass manufactory, an imperial porcelain manufactory, and various others, which the autocrat is determined to have, for no other reason but that other nations have them, though few if any of them pay their expenses, or produce articles so good or so cheap as can be imported. One of the most striking and gigantic buildings in St. Petersburg is the Admiralty. The principal front on the land side is, by the doctor's account, considerably more than one-third of an English mile in length, and its wings, in depth, extend six hundred and seventy-two feet, down to the edge of the Neva, this noble river forming the fourth side of the quadrangle. Along the front and wings a promenade, planted with trees, has taken place of the moat and ramparts by which it was formerly surrounded. Within the three sides (the Neva and two wings) are ranges of parallel buildings, which form the magazines, artificers' shops, mast and boat houses, offices, &c.; and in the area within these, equal, we are told, to about sixty-two thousand square feet, are four slips for building the largest, and two for a smaller class of, ships of war. This, however, is impossible; a side of such a square is not more than two hundred and fifty feet, and six slips would be huddled together even in six hundred feet, which, if so extended, would leave only one hundred feet in depth-not sufficient for a sloop of war; the doctor, therefore, we presume, must mean square yards. The whole of the outer range of buildings consists of grand suites of rooms, and long and beautifully ornamented galleries, filled with the natural history and curiosities collected in every part of the globe, and brought by the different navigators which Russia, of late years, has sent forth on discovery. In one room are assembled all the different nautical and mathematical instruments; in another all the models of ships of different nations and different eras; in another a complete library connected with every branch of the marine service. Just before the doctor's arrival, three ships were launched-the Emperor Alexander, of 110 guns; the Grand Duke Michael, of 74 guns; and the Imperatrice Alexandra, of 84 guns—all of which were built in the very heart of the capital, and constructed on the principles of Sir Robert Seppings-which, indeed, are now, we believe, adopted by every maritime nation of Europe. The oak timber with which vessels are built at Petersburg is mostly brought from Casan, of bad quality, and generally worked up on up while perfectly green; the consequence is, that the usual duration of a Russian ship is not more than five or six years. Hitherto, they have served for no other purpose than, like the beggarly boxes of Romeo's apothecary, merely to make up a show. The small share which these bad-sailing ships would allow their respectable commander, the Count Heyden, to take in the late ' untoward' affair of Navarin, made, it seems, a very strong impression in the capital; and since that exploit they are building and sending out ships with more activity than at any former period. Whether their magazines are better filled than in the Emperor Alexander's time Dr. Granville gives no account. Capt. Jones says that the Emperor one day, complimenting Admiral Ftheir good order, observed, 'Admiral, you are always talking to me of the English fleet and arsenals,-I should be glad to know if their storehouses can be in better or cleaner order than these?' No, please your Majesty, they are not half so clean; because, instead of being empty, like these, they are filled with pitch, tar, hemp, and naval stores of all sorts, which gives them a dirty appearance and disagreeable smell.' The same blunt admiral (his name is not mentioned), on being asked, after the admiralty ditch and rampart were filled up, what he thought the Czar Peter would say, if he could rise and see those beautiful alterations in the exterior of his favourite admiralty? I know not what he would ́ say to them,' replied the ancient, but I know well what he would think if he saw the deserted and empty state of the interior.' After this, the old tar had leave to go and reside in the country. We may here notice a fact long known to botanists, but of which our planters and purveyors of timber appear to have had no suspicion, that there are two distinct species of oak in England, the Quercus Robur, and the Quercus Sessiliflora; the former of which affords a close-grained, firm, solid timber, rarely subject to rot; the other more loose and sappy, very liable to rot, and not half so durable. This difference was noticed so early as the time of Ray; and Martyn, in his Flora Rustica, and Sir James Smith, in his Flora Britannica, have added their testimonies to the fact. The second species is supposed to have been introduced, some two or three ages ago, from the continent, where the oaks are chiefly of this latter species, especially in the German forests, the timber of which is known to be very worthless. But what is of more importance to us is, that, de facto, the impostor abounds and is propagated vigorously in the New Forest and other parts of Hampshire, in Norfolk, and the northern counties, and about London; and there is but too much reason to believe that the nume rous complaints that were heard about our ships being infested with what was called, improperly enough, dry-rot, were owing to to the introduction of this species of oak into the naval dock-yards, where, we understand, the distinction was not even suspected. It may thus be discriminated from the true old English oak: the acorn-stalks of the Robur are long and its leaves short, whereas the Sessiliflora has the acorn-stalks short and the leaves long; the acorns of the former grow singly, or seldom two on the same footstalk: those of the latter in clusters of two or three, close to the stem of the branch. We believe the Russian ships of the Baltic, that are not of larch or fir, are built of this species of oak; but if this were not the case, their exposure on the stocks, without cover, to the heat of summer, which, though short, is excessive, and the rifts and chinks, which fill up with ice and snow in the long winter, are enough to destroy the stoutest oak, and quite sufficient to account for their short-lived duration. Dr. Granville is moderate in stating the Russian army as not being less than half a million of men, which others, by paper estimates, have extended to a full million; but in this million are included all the employés belonging to the staff in St. Petersburg, to the commissariat, and, we believe, all the numerons persons about the court, who have rank in the army, including even the maids of honour, who are all major-generals. The machinery for the management of this army-the Horse-Guards of St. Petersburg -is in the palace of the Etat Major. One grand division of this vast institution is composed of hydrographers, topographers, and geographers, in which the general map of the empire, and maps of the respective governments, are constructed, examined, and corrected from the surveys, as they are brought in. Private soldiers were observed in one room, employed in copying MS. maps, plans of towns, and fortifications; others engraving them on copper; in another suite of apartments, a number of officers and soldiers, sitting round large tables covered with green cloth, were intent on calculations, drawing up tables, and keeping registers. Three large rooms are appropriated to the lithographic department. Another suite of rooms contains the instruments, and the manufactory of them. 'The workmen are all privates or subalterns in the army, and natives of Russia, who have been taught the art, and seem to be very expert artisans.' From ten to twenty printing presses are constantly at work in the neighbouring apartments, and they have a laboratory, in which the types are cast. Another range of rooms is set aside for the chancellerie, for transacting purely military matters; and a large octagon saloon is fitted up as a military library. In it is also a 'war-game table, more instructive than chess, to familiarize very readily the young officer with the practice and technology of his profession.' There is also a room, two hundred and fifty feet long by one hundred wide, containing the archives of the whole Russian army, enshrined, we presume, in receptacles rather different from the little odd white presses round the 'heel-kickery' (as the H.P. gentlemen call it) of our Horse-Guards. It is not, however, as the doctor says, unique in its kind,' as being wholly of cast iron' there is a store-house in Plymouth dock-yard six times its size, with doors, windows, floors, and staircase entirely of cast iron. There is a hospital attached to this establishment, which contains about one thousand people, who constantly live in the house, besides one hundred and thirty women, and from forty to fifty children. We pass over the long and very uninteresting account of the Imperial Academy of the Sciences, instituted by the Czar Peter; the Museums of Natural History, of Curiosities, and of Medals. The following articles, however, must be curious : In the same part of the building have been arranged the different objects in gold, found in the tumuli of Siberia; and directions, I understand, have been given to the governors of that part of Russia to forward to the Academy all similar monuments and remains that might hereafter be brought to light. These relics of a nation scarcely known consist in diadems, military trophies, coats of mail, jewels, idols, and figures of various animals. The material of which they are made, and the beauty of their design and workmanship, bespeak great wealth, and an advancement in the polite and useful arts in the dominions of the race of Tschinghis-Khan, scarcely to be credited, were not these testimonies indubitable.'- Granville, vol. ii. p. 127. Everything in this northern capital is on the grandest scale. A triumphal arch was constructing, of porphyry, granite, and marble, in commemoration of the return of the Guards from Paris, which, when finished, we are told, will vie in grandeur with the colossal temples of Egypt. The imperial government pays the expense, but one individual, Theodore Ouvaroff, was permitted to contribute four hundred thousand roubles. In the Hotel des Mines, the great conference-hall is stated to measure three hundred and fifty feet in length. Here the models of the mines and of the modes of separating the gold from the siliceous sand are neatly executed; and in another room is a splendid collection of minerals, all neatly arranged, and placed in glass cases. In this establishment are three hundred and thirty resident students, two hundred of whom are required to pay a pension of eight hundred roubles a year. They are instructed in every process of mining. Dr. Granville was shown in a model the structure -(it must have been a huge model)—of a real mine, with its surrounding strata. Descending with the conductor, each having a lighted taper, 'we followed him (says the author) into the bowels of the earth, under the building, by a tortuous road, and penetrated into the interior of a series of mining chambers, the walls of which represented, by the aggregation of real specimens, the various stratifications which illustrate geology, and the metalliferous veins, skilfully arranged. Here, also, we observed the mode of sinking shafts, of making trenches and galleries, of cutting for the ore and carrying it out of the mine, the pumps employed to drain the mine, and every other utensil, machine, or process usually employed in such operations. The extent of this subterraneous practical school is very considerable. I found, also, that it was rather colder than was comfortable, and we were very glad to see daylight once more peep upon us at the termination of our long peregrination. Those parts of geology and the metalliferous veins which appeared to me to be most successfully represented, were the coal formation and the veins of copper, and in another place, of gold in decomposing granite.'-Granville, vol. ii. p. 155. The total produce of the gold mines in the year 1827 is stated to have been 616,3831., of which two-thirds may belong to private individuals. One of these, of the name of Demidoff, is said to have left 150,000l. sterling a year to each of his three children! One of them died last year at Florence. The following account of this family is curious enough. 'When Peter learned how valuable a subject he had rewarded in old Demidoff, he wished to see him placed in the class of nobles. After some hesitation, the old man consented to receive his Sovereign's farther bounty, and being asked what his arms should be, he answered, a miner's hammer, that my posterity may never forget the source of their wealth and prosperity." It is said, that one of the three brothers left, at his death, the whole of his property to the Foundling Hospital, at Moscow. 66 6 Nothing can equal the splendour in which Monsieur Demidoff lived; nor has there existed, for many years past in Europe, a more magnificent patron of the fine arts. Of the numerous suite which accompanies him every where, and in which there are painters, sculptors, musicians, and poets, the most remarkable feature is, a regular company of French comedians, with all their trappings and apparatus for establishing a theatre wherever their liberal master may choose to reside.'-Granville, vol. ii. p. 159. The last public institution we shall notice is the botanical garden, which, like all the rest, is of gigantic dimensions. It contains sixty-five acres: a parallelogram formed by three parallel lines of hot-houses and conservatories, united at the extremities by covered corridors, constitutes the grand feature of this establishment. The south line contains green-house plants in the centre, and hot-house plants at each end; the middle line has hot-house plants only, and the north line is filled with green-house plants. The connecting corridors are two hundred and forty-five feet. 'The north and south line contain respectively five different compartments of one hundred toises each,' that is to say, they are together |