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 1866, was finished a few days before my arrival, and the furnaces were utterly devoid of heat.  In the yard at the zavod, I saw a dozen or more sleds, and on each of them there was an iron-bound box filled with bars of gold.  This train was ready to leave under strong guard for St. Petersburg.

The morning after my visit to the zavod it was reported that a soldier guarding the sled train had been killed during the night.  The incident was a topic of conversation for the rest of my stay, but I obtained no clear account of the affair.  All agreed that a sentinel was murdered, and one of the boxes plundered of several bars of gold, but beyond this there were conflicting statements.  It was the first occurrence of the kind at Barnaool, and naturally excited the peaceful inhabitants.