is now sufficient for all purposes.

The lead absorbs the silver, and leaves the copper in the refuse
matter. This was formerly thrown away, but by a newly invented process
the copper is extracted and saved. The production of silver in the
Altai mines is about a thousand and fifty poods annually, or forty
thousand pounds avoirdupois. The silver is cast into bars or cakes
about ten inches square, and weighing from seventy to a hundred pounds
each.

Colonel Filoff showed us into the room where the silver is stored. Two
soldiers were on guard and six or eight others rested outside. A
sergeant brought a sealed box which contained the key of the safe.
First the box and then the safe were opened at the colonel's order,
and when we had satisfied our curiosity, the safe was locked and the
key restored to its place of deposit. The colonel carried the seal
that closed the box, and the sergeant was responsible for the
integrity of the wax.

The cakes had a dull hue, somewhat lighter than that of lead, and were
of a convenient shape for handling. Each cake had its weight, and
value, and result of assay stamped upon it, and I was told that it was
assayed again at St. Petersburg to guard against the algebraic process
of substitution. About thirty poods of gold are extracted from every
thousand poods of silver after the treasure reaches St. Petersburg.
The silver is extracted from the lead used to absorb it, the latter
being again employed while the former goes on its long journey to the
banks of the Neva.

The ore continues to pass through successive reductions until a pood
of it contains no more than three-fourths a zolotink of silver; less
than that proportion will not pay expenses. I was told that the annual
cost of working the mines equaled the value of the silver produced.
The gold contained in the silver is the only item of profit to the
crown. About thirty thousand poods of copper are produced annually in
this district, but none of the copper zavods are at Barnaool.

[Illustration: STRANGE COINCIDENCE.]

All gold produced from the mines of Siberia, with the exception of
that around Nerchinsk, is sent to Barnaool to be smelted. This work is
performed, in a room about fifteen feet square, the furnaces being
fixed in its centre like parlor stoves of unusual size. The smelting
process continues four months of each year, and during this time about
twelve hundred poods of gold are melted and cast into bars. This work,
for 1