The most beautiful and the most peculiar objects here produced, however, are the large and magnificent malachite vases, the material for which is yielded by Siberia. Nowhere else is this beautiful substance found in such large and pure masses ; some of these vases are valued at a hundred thousand rubles.
Some very splendid specimens of vases of this kind are also afforded by the imperial porcelain manufactory, which, however, vies less than any other with similar establishments in other countries. It is situate near Alexandrovsk, where there is also an iron-foundry. The latter is erected ill a style of great elegance, but yields in the excellence of workmanship to an establishment of the same kind in St. Petersburg, belonging to an Englishman of the name of Bearth. Even the government finds it necessary to entrust any important commission, not to its own manufactory, but to Mr. Bearth's.
The vast and important establishments of this Englishman are behind the new Admiralty, where there are a sugar refinery, works for cutting timber, and the iron-foundry. For the transport of the raAV material, and the completed work, as well as for the ten steam -boats which Mr. Beartli owns, and which are employed as passage-boats between Cronstadt and St. Petersburg, he has constructed a harbour on his own account. Several steam-engines are employed in cutting the timber ; and in order that planks may be furnished to meet the demand at all times of the year, the canal in which the beams float is heated in winter by steampipes, that the water may never freeze. The whole year through, the greedy saw .is at work, demoUshing what in the forests of Mordwina and Viatka was the production of centuries ; and countless are the numbers of planks destined to spring beneath the feet of the dance-loving beauties of St. Petersburg, till the red light on the steeples of St. Petersburg announces their end in one of the numerous conflagrations of the city.
The sugar-refinery is not shown to any one, because the immense consumption of Mr. Bearth's sugar is the result of the employment of some substitute for bullock's -blood in the purification of the sugar, and the nature of this substitute is a secret. The pious scruples of the Russians were carried to so extravagant a pitch, that they renounced the use of sugar during their fasts, on account of the small quantity of animal substance used in the refining. No sugar but that bearing the stamp of Bearth is ever seen on the table during the fasts, because none of the forbidden animal juice is employed in its fabrication. It is used, therefore, throughout Russia, on the Steppes of the south, and in the steril neighbourhood of the Obi and the Irtish, where it fetches a most astounding price.
The largest cotton-spinning establishment in the city was erected a few years ago by Baron Stieglitz. It is worked by an enormous English steam-engine of 110 horse power, the largest of the kind in the east of Europe, and must give the people from east Europe and Asia who throng to St. Petersburg, a marvellous idea of the inventive genius of the English, and of the boldness of the human spirit. Let any one think for a moment of 110 labouring horses, with their 440 weary legs, the smacking of whips, the clatter and jingle of the harness, and the waste of breath in bawling and cursing, and then come and admire the grand and simple motion of the steam-engine, the gentle, easy, noiseless movement of its oil-smeared giant arms. The machine stands in a great hall, with cast-iron balustrades and steps around, from which one can admire at leisure the superb play of the muscles of tliis mighty iron man.
The director is Mr. Greig, an Englishman, fi'om whom we wished to obtain permission to inspect the manufactory. In vain we inquired for him ; no one knew any such person. " Had we permission from Mr. Feodor Rovanovitsch ?" (Frederick Robert's son.) Luckily, Feodor Rovanovitsch, who was no other than the elegantly -dressed Mr. Greig himself, and whose family name the Russian, as usual, knew nothing about, entered at that moment, and was kind enough to show us the place himself. The fresh and healthy exterior of the workmen compared with the depraved, miserable, sickly appearance of the manufacturing population in France, Belgium, and Germany, was sticking. The light-tempered Russian never remains so long in one kind of employment as to be injured by it. Neither is the tyranny of the master-manufacturers so systematic here as in other countiies.