ONE OF THE PROFESSORS.
"Another educational institution of St. Petersburg is the School of Mines, which is supported by the Government and has about three hundred students. Its collection of minerals is said to be the finest in the world. There are single nuggets of gold worth thousands of dollars, great masses of solid silver, platinum, copper, and other metals, together with topaz, beryl, aquamarine, quartz, and other crystals in great variety and of unusual size and beauty. One crystal of beryl weighs five pounds and is valued at twenty-five thousand dollars.
DESCENDING A SHAFT.
"In the halls devoted to instruction there are models of mines, with the veins of ore, and the machinery for working them; the workmen are represented by little figures like dolls, and the whole is admirably executed. After looking at these models we were taken to the garden, where there is a section of a mine, through which we were guided by means of candles and torches. It required very little imagination for us to believe we were actually in a mine far below the surface of the earth, and that the veins of ore were real rather than fictitious. It must be of great advantage for the education of the students, and certainly we found it very instructive in the little time we were in it.
