lower class of people, or to children who had received their information from servants.
"I had an odd experience of this impression about our national color a few years ago," said Doctor Bronson. "It was in a small city of Austria where strangers do not often penetrate, and our countrymen are not as well known as in Vienna and Paris.
"I was making a purchase in a shop, and while chatting with the sales-woman she asked my nationality. I told her I was an American. She shook her head doubtingly, and said she thought I must be an Englishman, as I 'didn't look like an American.'
"'Why don't I look like an American?' I asked.
"'There was an American gentleman here a few months ago,' said she, 'and he was just as black as your hat.'
"I didn't follow the topic further," said Doctor Bronson, "but concluded to let her have her own opinion about my national complexion."
"One of the most interesting things I saw at Barnaool," said Mr. Hegeman, resuming the subject of conversation, "was the Government Museum. I spent the greater part of a day there, and only had time to glance over the admirable collection. There is a mining department which contains models of all the machinery used in gold-mining, and in many instances the machines themselves. Some of the machines are nearly a hundred years old, and almost identical with those in use to-day. There is a letter from the Empress Elizabeth, bearing her autograph, giving directions about the working of the mines in her time; it is kept in an ivory box on the table around which the Mining Board holds its sessions. The first discoveries of precious metals in the Altai region were made by one of the Demidoffs, who was sent there by Peter the Great. A monument in the public square of Barnaool records his services and keeps his memory green.
"There are models of mines similar to those in the Mining School at St. Petersburg, so that the student can see what kind of work is before him. They showed me a steam-engine which is said to have been made at Barnaool in 1764, for the purpose of blowing the furnaces; the director of the museum claimed that it was on the principle adopted by James Watt in 1765, and therefore, he argued, the credit of the improvement upon the old engine of Newcomen should be given to Siberia rather than to Scotland.
"Very interesting was the collection of natural history, which included the skins of two enormous tigers killed a few years before in one of the Southern districts of Western Siberia. Both these tigers had histories,
