Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/180

164 The hours of labor in the Kará mines are from 7 to 5  in winter, and from 5  to  in summer. A considerable part of this time, however, is spent by the convicts in going back and forth between the razréis, or "cutting," and the prisons where they spend their nights.

The amount of gold extracted from the placers annually is eleven puds, or about four hundred pounds, all of which goes into the private purse of his Majesty the Tsar. The actual yield of the mines is probably a little more than this, since many of the convicts of the free command surreptitiously wash out gold for themselves and sell it to dealers in that commodity, who smuggle it across the