a pedestal, a rugged
rock, to indicate the rude and unpolished character of the people to
whom the emperor had introduced so many of the arts of civilization.
Immediate search was made to find a suitable rock. About eight miles
from the city a huge boulder was discovered, forty-two feet long,
thirty-four feet broad, and twenty-one feet high. It was found, by
geometric calculation, that this enormous mass weighed three millions
two hundred thousand pounds. It was necessary to transport it over
heights and across morasses to the Neva, and there to float it down to
the place of its destination. The boulder lay imbedded a few feet in
the ground, absolutely detached from all other rock, and with no
similar substance anywhere in the vicinity.

It would seem impossible that a mass so stupendous could be moved. But
difficulties only roused the energies of Catharine. In the first
place, a solid road was made for its passage. After four months'
labor, with very ingenious machinery, the rock was so far raised as to
enable them to slip under it heavy plates of brass, which rested upon
cannon balls five inches in diameter, and which balls ran in grooves
of solid metal. Then, by windlasses, worked by four hundred men, it
was slowly forced along its way. Having arrived at the Neva, it was
floated down the river by what are called camels, that is immense
floating fabrics constructed with air chambers so as to render them
very buoyant.

This statue as completed is regarded as one of the grandest ever
executed. The tzar is represented as on horseback, ascending a steep
rock, the summit of which he is resolved to attain. In an Asiatic
dress and crowned with laurel, he is pointing forward with his right
hand, while with his left he holds the bridle of the magnificent
charger on which he is mounted. The horse stands on his hind feet
bounding forward, trampling beneath a brazen serpent, emblematic of
the opposition the monarch encountered and overcame. It bears the
simple inscription, "To Peter the First, by Catharine the Second,
1782." The whole expense of the statue amounted to over four hundred
thousand dollars, an immense sum for that day, when a dollar was worth
more than many dollars now.

At the close of the year 1782, the Emperor of Germany and Catharine
II. entered into an alliance for the more energetic prosecution of the
war against the Turks. They issued very spirited proclamations
enumerating their grievances, and immediatel