"They must have had a hard time to make the foundations in this marshy ground," one of the boys remarked.
"They drove six rows of piling there, one after the other, before getting a foundation to suit them," said the Doctor. "The shaft alone, which was put up in the rough and finished afterwards, is thought to weigh about four hundred tons, and the pedestal and base nearly as much more. Unfortunately the shaft has suffered from the effects of the severe climate, and may be destroyed at no distant day. Several cracks have been made by the frost, and though they have been carefully cemented, they continue to increase in size. Pieces have fallen from the surface of the stone in the same way that they have fallen from the Egyptian obelisk in New York, and it is very evident that the climate of St. Petersburg is unfriendly to monuments of granite."
The bronze on the pedestal and capital is from Turkish cannon which were melted down for the purpose. The only inscription is in the few words,
"TO ALEXANDER THE FIRST, GRATEFUL RUSSIA."
Frank made a sketch of the monument together with the buildings of the État-major and a company of soldiers that marched past the foot of the column. Doctor Bronson said the soldiers belonged to the guard of the palace, where they had been on duty through the day, and had just been relieved.
From the column and the buildings surrounding it the trio of strangers walked to the bank of the river and watched the boats on the water, where the setting sun slanted in long rays and filled the air with the mellow light peculiar to high latitudes near the close of day. It was early in September, and already the evening air had a touch of coolness about it. St. Petersburg is in latitude 60° North, and consequently is quite near the Arctic Circle. Doctor Bronson told the youths that if they had come there in July they would have found very little night, the sun setting not far from ten o'clock and rising about two. In the four hours of night there is almost continuous twilight; and by mounting to the top of a high building at midnight one can see the position of the sun below the northern horizon. Any one who goes to bed after sunset and rises before sunrise would have very little sleep in St. Petersburg in summer.
"On the other hand," said the Doctor, "the nights of winter are very long. Winter is the gay season here, as the city is deserted by fashionable people in summer, and one is not expected to make visits. The Imperial court goes away; the Emperor has a palace at Yalta in the Crimea, and there he passes the autumn months, unless kept in St. Petersburg or Moscow by the affairs of the nation. They have some public festivities here in summer, but not generally, most of the matters of this kind being reserved for the winter."
PETER THE GREAT.