Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/90

84 "The shaft, without pedestal or capital, is fourteen feet in diameter and eighty-four feet high; it was originally one hundred and two feet high, but was reduced through fear that its length was out of proportion to its diameter. The base and pedestal are one single block of red granite about twenty-five feet high, and the capital is sixteen feet high. The angel above the capital is fourteen feet tall, and the cross in the hands of the angel is seven feet above it. With the platform on which it rests, the whole structure rises one hundred and fifty-four feet from the level of the ground."

"They must have had a hard time to make the foundations in this marshy ground," one of the boys remarked.

"They drove six rows of piling there, one after the other, before getting a foundation to suit them," said the Doctor. "The shaft alone, which was put up in the rough and finished afterwards, is thought to weigh about four hundred tons, and the pedestal and base nearly as much more. Unfortunately the shaft has suffered from the effects of the severe climate, and may be destroyed at no distant day. Several cracks have been made by the frost, and though they have been carefully cemented, they continue to increase in size. Pieces have fallen from the surface of the stone in the same way that they have fallen from the Egyptian obelisk in New York, and it is very evident that the climate of St. Petersburg is unfriendly to monuments of granite."

The bronze on the pedestal and capital is from Turkish cannon which were melted down for the purpose. The only inscription is in the few words,

"TO ALEXANDER THE FIRST, GRATEFUL RUSSIA."

Frank made a sketch of the monument together with the buildings of the État-major and a company of soldiers that marched past the foot of the column. Doctor Bronson said the soldiers belonged to the guard of the palace, where they had been on duty through the day, and had just been relieved.

From the column and the buildings surrounding it the trio of strangers walked to the bank of the river and watched the boats on the water, where the setting sun slanted in long rays and filled the air with the mellow light peculiar to high latitudes near the close of day. It was early in September, and already the evening air had a touch of coolness about it. St. Petersburg is in latitude 60° North, and consequently is quite near the Arctic Circle. Doctor Bronson told the youths that if they had come there in July they would have found very little night, the sun