From the palace the students passed into the Hermitage, which is a museum and gallery of paintings, and is hardly equalled in all Europe. It is somewhat larger than the palace, enclosing two large courts. It is a perfect labyrinth of apartments, and all of them filled with paintings, works of art, and historical relics. All the old masters are represented in the picture galleries, and rooms or suits of rooms are devoted to each school of painting. Not many of the students were able to appreciate the treasures of art, and most of them preferred the military and naval pictures in the Winter Palace. In the vast numismatic collection are many very rare Greek coins. In the gem room is a mechanical clock, which a poor woman drew in a lottery, and sold for fifteen thousand dollars. It played overtures with all the effects of the modern orchestrion, and was wound up for the gratification of the visitors. In the gallery of Peter the Great, the party were disposed to linger for a long time. It contains works of art and industry in the time of the Czar whose name it bears, and the turning lathes and carving tools he used himself. His spy-glasses, mathematical instruments, books, canes, and other articles are exhibited. The gilded chariot in which he occasionally rode, his dogs, and his war horse, stuffed, and various casts and portraits of him, taken after death, were examined with interest. A broken clock, with wonderful mechanical movements, excited the attention of the boys. It consists of a peacock, which, at the striking of the hour, expands his tail, while a rooster flaps his wings, an owl rolls his eyes, and a grasshopper feeds on a mushroom. Near it is a collection of snuff-boxes, which belonged to various sovereigns of Europe. In this room, enclosed in cases, was a great variety of curiosities, including articles which had belonged to the members of the royal family. On the lower floor are the galleries of ancient sculpture. In the Kertch collection are medals and other articles proving the existence of a Greek colony on the northern shores of the Black Sea six hundred years before Christ. In 1820 a tomb was found at Kertch, which is at the entrance to the Sea of Azof, containing a chamber of hewn stone, in which were the remains of a Scythian prince, with his wife, his horse, and his chief groom. His crown, weapons, ornaments, and golden robes, with vases of bronze and other material containing the remains of provisions, were found where they had lain for two thousand years, and were conveyed to this museum. The tomb of a priestess of Ceres, buried with her ornaments, and with four horses, was found in 1866. The Scythian collection is equally rich in the treasures of a former race.