Take them for all in all, Siberian towns are far pleasanter to visit than one might imagine. The streets, as a rule, possess a wooden pavement, but after a heavy rain they are very apt to become impassable. A gentleman at Tomsk once assured me that on one occasion when the snow melted a bullock was drowned in the surging mass of water rolling past his door. But, after all, the streets of Chicago and New Orleans are not very well kept, and where the climatic variations are so extreme, it is doubtless almost an impossibility to keep the streets in anything like proper order. Otherwise, the telephone is to be found in all the more important towns, and when the visitor looks up and sees such an amazing number of wires stretching across the streets from pole to pole, he might readily imagine himself in America. The electric light has also been introduced even at Tomsk and Irkutsk. Means of locomotion have by no means been neglected, and you can hire a quick-going little Russian cabriolet for twenty kopecks, or sixpence the fare! What astonishes one most, however, is that, as in Russia, there is scarcely any movement in the streets of these towns, notwithstanding that they are centres of a very active commerce. Education has made considerable progress in the towns of Siberia, and the wealthier classes are not behindhand in assisting the Government in this direction. At Tomsk a University has recently been established in an immense and very handsome edifice, which contains at present some 500 students. Admission has been wisely rendered much more easy than it is in Russia, and it is expected that before long a faculty of Law will be established, in which the students will be able to study the new legal reforms which Alexander II. introduced some years ago into the judicial system of Russia. Other professorial chairs will be introduced before long in addition to that of Medicine, which is already very well attended. The library contains over 200,000 volumes, the greater part gifts from private benefactors, and not a few of the rarer editions of French and English classics must have originally belonged to libraries dispersed at the time of the French Revolution. A number of comfortable houses have been built in the park attached to the University (only a very short time ago virgin forest) for the benefit of students, who can there receive board and lodging at a very moderate price. In addition to the University, another huge educational establishment, an Institute of Technology, is in progress of construction. Tomsk, although it is somewhat out of the way for commercial purposes, appears to me destined to become before long the intellectual centre of Siberia.