Note 2 — Chapter XXXVIII · THE SHILKA.

At Shilkinsk were built several of the barges for the first great expedition on the Amur in 1854, and here the expedition was fitted out with military stores and other necessaries. The Government had, too, in the place a glass factory and a very large tan-yard, but I have a suspicion that these factories were much more important in the days when Messrs. Atkinson, Collins, and Ravenstein wrote, than a quarter of a century later, at the time of my visit. Up to this point at least I could hear of no factories in Siberia, other than those I have mentioned. At Ekaterineburg there was a paper-mill, belonging to Mr. Yates, at whose house I dined; and there were the soap and candle works, near which I stayed, and where, through difficulty of getting a sufficiency of fuel, they were burning wood and rubbish, and with the gas produced therefrom, through a two-feet tube, were heating some of the boilers.