Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/104

98 masses of stone were brought from their quarries; and they also noted that the four entrances of the church were between pillars of granite sixty feet high and seven feet in diameter, polished to the smoothness of a mirror. An immense dome forms the centre of the edifice. It is of iron, covered on the outside with copper, and this copper is heavily plated with



pure gold. It is the dome which first caught the eyes of the travellers as they approached the city, and forms an important landmark from every direction. The cupola rests on thirty granite pillars, which look small enough when seen from below, but are really of great size.

In the inside of the church are paintings by Russian artists, and there are two columns of malachite fifty feet high, and of proportionate diameter—the largest columns of this costly mineral anywhere in the world. Immense quantities of malachite, lapis-lazuli, and other valuable stones are used in the decoration of the church, and our friends thought that if there was anything to criticise it was the great amount of ornamentation and gilding in the interior. "But I have no doubt," wrote Fred in his notebook, "that this display has its effect upon the worshippers in the church,