At first the blacklead met with proved to be no better than the refuse Cumberland blacklead, and upwards of three hundred tons of this quality had to be removed before a deposit of the best and purest blacklead was finally opened up. Pieces were soon obtained weighing as much as eighty pounds. The Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg, before which body _Alibert_ laid his samples of blacklead for analysis, declared the same to consist of the same elements and possess the same properties and consequently to be of precisely the same nature as the Cumberland blacklead. _Alibert_ now proceeded to England where he visited the declining blacklead mines of Cumberland and convinced himself by personal observation of the exhaustion and decay of the same. He thereupon submitted his samples of blacklead to some of the most extensive English leadpencil manufactories for examination, who unanimously confirmed the verdict of the Academy at St. Petersburg, pronouncing the quality of the Siberian blacklead to be excellent and in no way inferior to the Cumberland lead. It had cost _Alibert_ eight years of unremitting labour and a capital of one million Francs when he beheld his enterprise crowned with this certainly unexpected success. He now turned his attention to rendering the newly discovered material available for the manufacture of pencils. Having convinced himself that _Faber’s_ manufactory was the most extensive in existence and that it circulated the largest amount of fine goods in the world, he applied to the same with a proposition for an agreement, by virtue of which his blacklead was to be taken solely and exclusively by that establishment for the manufacture of pencils. The firm on the other hand, having thoroughly convinced themselves that the newly discovered blacklead was quite equal to the genuine and best Cumberland blacklead in quality, willingly entertained this proposition of _Alibert’s_, so that in the year 1856 a contract was entered into between the manufactory and _Alibert_ and sanctioned by the Russian Government, according to which all the blacklead, which comes from the Siberian mines is to be delivered to _A. W. Faber’s_ manufactory, and to no other establishment for the purposes of pencil manufacture, now and for all time. It was a mighty work which the restless energy of _Alibert_ had brought into execution in a land so difficult of access. On the summit of the mountain of Batougol, which now in the Russian maps of the country is designated by the name of “_Alibertsberg_” in honorable remembrance of the discoverer of the blacklead mine, _Alibert_ assembled all his working force and a little colony soon sprung up, which addressed itself zealously to the new mining operations.