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COXE’S TRAVELS iN RUSSIA. 667
Falconet having conceived the defign of placing the ftatue on a huge rock * inftead
of a pedeftal, carefully examined the environs of Peterfburgh, for a detached ma’s
of granite, of magnitude correfpondent to the dimenfions of the equeftrian figure ;
and after confiderable refearch, he difcovered, near the village of Lachta, a ftupendous
crag, half buried in the midft of a marfhy foreft. The expence and difficulty of
tran{porting it were no obitacles to Catherine I].: the morafs was drained, the foreft
cleared, and a road four verfts in length formed from the fhore to the Gulf of Finland.
It was fet in motion on large friction-balls, and grooves of metal, by means of pullies
and 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 fhore, then em-
barked on a nautical machine +, tranfported eight verfts by water, and landed at Peterf-
burgh near the fpot where it is now erected. This more than Roman work was
accomplifhed in lefs than fix months; the rock when landed was forty-two feet long
at 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 retaining
the original dimenfions; as, in order to form a proper ftation for the ftatue, and re-
prefent 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; and in order to produce
a refemblance of an abrupt precipice, had been too lavifh of the chiffel, Art is too
confpicuous ; and the effect would have been more fublime had the ftone been left as
much as poflible in its rude ftate, a vaft, unwieldy, ftupendous mals.
The ftatue was erected on the pedeftal on the 27th of Auguft 1782, near the Ad-
miralty, and the pontoon bridge over the Neva. The ceremony was performed with
great folemnity, and accompanied wirh a folemn inauguration.
Having paffed feveral months in Ruflia, I fhall throw together feveral fa€ts and
obfervations concerning the {tate of the weather, and the effects of the cold in this fe-
vere climate.
During our journey from Mofcow to Peterfburgh, in the month of September, we
found the weather very changeable, the autumnal rains being extremely frequent and
heavy t. ‘The mornings and evenings were extremely cold ; and, whenever it did not
rain, we generally obferved the grafs and trees covered witha hoar froft. On our
arrival at Peterfburgh on the 29th of September, the winter was not yet fet in: in
October
* « Pour marqueur a poftérité, d’ou cet héros legiflateur étoit parti, et quels obftacles il avoit fur-
monté.”—Defcription d’une Pierre pour fervir de Piedeftal, &c. in Haygold’s Rufsland, vol. ii. p. 211.
+ This nautical machine was con{truGed on the principle of the camel, which js ufed to convey fhips
over the bars, both at Amfterdam 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 ftpne,
fu; ported by this machine, appeared like a moving mountain on the furface of the gulf.
The machinery for the tranfport of this enormous mafs was conftructed under the dire€tion of Count
Carburi, who was known in Roffia under the name of the Chevalier Lafcaris, and the procefs is defcribed
‘in a fuperb work, illuftrated with engravings, under the title of « Monument eleve a la glorie de Pierre
le Grand, 1777.”
+ In thirty days it rained twenty-four ; and the quantity of water which fell at St. Peterfburgh in the
month of September O.S. was equal to 2? Englifh inches in depth.
From accurate obfervations, during fourteen years, to afcertain the quantity of rain and fnow which
fell at St. Peterfburgh, the refult was, that the average annual duration of {nowy and rainy weather was
equal to forty-two times twenty-four hours, or fomething lefs than the ninth part of the year. From a
courfe of ten-years’ obfervations it appeared, that rain fell during fome part of one hundred and three
days, and {now during fome part of feventy two; and that if the year was divided into twelve parts, 2
fourth was fine weather, a third rain, and a fifth fnow.
4 Q2 The
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