pile: an octagonal tower rises 200 feet above the roadway over high archways and a large two-storeyed gallery above them. The beholder who is told that this is like a ship will possess the credulity of Polonius if he assent; but actually Peter modelled it as a ship to serve for the elementary instructions of his future sailors. As all know, Peter derived his idea of ships from the Dutch, but even that explains little and leaves much to the imagination. As remote is the connection of Sukharev with ships and the sea, so if not exactly a suitable monument for an officer of Moscow's soldiery it was what Peter thought would serve his purpose better than any other design. Its closest connection with ships is at present; as a water tower it is not wholly useless still. Its architecture is not remarkable, a mixture of Lombard with Gothic that might have resulted from copying the Vosskresenski Gate and substituting a tall straight tower for the ornate Gothic spires then the fashion in Moscow. Considered a ship--the tower is the mast, the rooms below are supposed to resemble the poop-deck and quarter-galleries of an old man-of-war. The entrance is by a flight of steps from the Srietenka; in the large room a number of Moscow youths were instructed in arithmetic by a Scotch schoolmaster named Farquharson, and two Christ Church scholars, Gwynne and Graves, whom Peter held practically as prisoners there. Sometimes these pupils were taken to St Petersburgh to drive piles for foundations of the new town, at others they were exercised in elocution and deportment that they might the better represent comedies for the diversion of the Court. The teachers of the school knew nothing of Russian and the scholars only their native tongue--such was Peter's way. Unhappy the scholars [Russian poetry in cyrillic letters][E] [E] "Stolid, forlorn, mum and glum, Being Russian born--not deaf and dumb." It is said a lodge of Freemasons used once to meet in a room of the tower, and there not only were "black arts" practised but Peter convened secret meetings of the State Council, a sort of Star Chamber. The society of "Neptune" really consisted of Lefort the Swiss General, Archbishop Theofan, Admiral Apraxin, Farquharson, Bruce, and Princes Cherkassky, Galitzin, Menshikov, and Sheremetiev. Those in fact who were for westernising Russia.