667
Falconet having conceived the defign of placing the ftatue on a huge rock * .infteadof a pedeftal, carefully examined the environs of Peterfburgh, for a detached mafsof granite, of magnitude correfpondent to the dimenfions of the equeftrian figure jand after confiderabie refearch, he difcovered, near the village of Lachta, a ftupendouscrag, half buried in the midft of a marlhy foreft. The expence and difficulty oftranfporting it were no obftacles to Catherine II . : the morafs was drained, the foreftcleared, and a road four verflsin length formed from the fhore to the Gulf of Finland .It was fet in motion on large fri£tion-balls, and grooves of metal, by means of pulliesand windlaffes, worked by four hundred men. In this manner it was conveyed,with forty men feated on the top, twelve hundred feet a day to the fliore, then em-barked on a nautical machine f, tranfported eight verfts by water, and landed at Peterf-burgh near the fpot where it is now erected. This more than Roman w'ork wasaccomplifhed in lefs than fix months ; the rock when landed was forty-two feet longat the bafe, thirty-fix at the top, eleven broad and feventeen high, and weighed fifteen-hundred tons,
The pedeftal, however, though ftill of prodigious magnitude, is far from retainingthe original dimenfions; as, in order to form a proper ftation for the ftatue, and re-present an afcent, the bulk has been much diminifhed. But I could not obferve with-out regret, that the artift had refined too much upon nature j and in order to producea refemblance of an abrupt precipice, had been too lavilh of the chifiel, Art is tooconfpicuous ; and the effeft would have been more fublime had the ftone been left asmuch as poftible in its rude ftate, a vaft, unwieldy, ftupendous mafs.
The ftatue was ere&ed on the pedeftal on the 27th of Auguft 1782, near the Ad-miralty, and the pontoon bridge over the Neva. The ceremony was performed withgreat folemnity, and accompanied wirh a folemn inauguration.
Having paffed feveral months in Ruftia, I fhall throw together feveral fa&s andobfervations concerning the ftate of the weather, and the effefts of the cold in this fe-vere climate.
During our journey from Mofcow to Peterfburgh, in the month of September, wefound the weather very changeable, the autumnal rains being extremely frequent andheavy J. The mornings and evenings were extremely cold ; and, whenever it did notrain, we generally obferved the grafs and trees covered with a hoar froft. On ourarrival at Peterfburgh on the 29th of September, the winter was not yet fet in: in
Gftober
* “ Pour mavqueur a pofterite, d’ou cet heros Iegiflateur ctoit parti, et quels obilacles il avoit fur-moive ”—Defcription d’une Pierre pour fcrvir de Piedtftal, &c. in Haygold’s Rufsland, vol. ii. p. 211.
■j- This nautical machine was conftrufted on the principle of the camel, which is ufe<j to convey {hipsover the bars, both at Amfttrdam and St Peterfburgh. It was hollow, and being funk to the water level,the ftone was placed upon it, the water was then pumped out of it, and it rofe and floated. The ftone,fu ported by this machine, appeared like a moving mountain on the furface of the gulf.
The machinery for the tranfport of tin’s enormous mafs was conftrufted under the direftion of CountCarburi, who was known in Ruftia under the name of the Chevalier Lafcaris, and the procefs is defcribedin a fuperb work, illuftrated with engravings, under the title of “Monument eleve a la glorie de Pierrele Grand, 17 77
X In thirty days it rained twenty-four ; and the (juantity of water which fell at St. Peterfburgh in themonth of September O.S. tvas equal to 2’ Englifh inches in depth.
from accurate obfervations, during fourteen years, to afcertain the quantity of rain and fnow whichfill at St. Peteiftiurgh, the rtfult was, that the average annual duration of fnowy and rainy weather wasequal to forty two times twenty-four hours, or fomething lefs than the ninth part of the year. From icourfe of ten years’ obfervations it appeared, that rain fell during fomc part of one hundred and threedays, and fnow during fome part of feventy two j and that if the year was divided into twelve parts, afourth was fine weather, a third rain, and a fifth fnow.
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