Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/58

36 produced almost at their doors, the inhabitants of Ekaterínburg have naturally taken their share; and they have used it to secure for themselves all the luxuries and opportunities for self-culture that are within their reach. They have organized, for example, the "Urál Society of Friends of Natural Science," which holds regular meetings and publishes its proceedings and the papers read by its members; they have established a museum of anatomy in connection with the Nevyánsk hospital, and a small but promising museum of natural history under the patronage of the scientific society; they sustain two newspapers they boast of having occasionally a season of opera; and they recently carried to a successful conclusion a scientific, agricultural, and industrial exhibition that attracted public attention throughout Russia and brought visitors to Ekaterínburg from almost all parts of the empire. These evidences of culture and enterprise, judged by an American standard, may seem trifling and insignificant; but they are not so