Academies, Scientific Institutions, academy of sciences, with 'a library of 150,000 hooks and MSS., was founded by Peter the great in 1725. In the institute of technology, founded in 1828, 200 pupils are taught silk-spinning, the manufacture of cloth, silk, and woolen stuffs, wood-carving, and engraving on copper. founded in 1829, is attended by 1400 students, and has between 80 and 100 professors. The new tuitional museum of antiquities, painting, and sculpture, completed in 1851, is a noble structure, built entirely of marble and metal. There arc numerous benevo lent institutions, a number of splendid theaters, and an Italian opera, a magnificent structure.
Manvfizetures and 3,000 ships annually leave the port. The exports have a value of over £5,000,000; the imports of about £15,000,000 a year. Of the manufacturing cities of Russia, St. Petersburg is one of the most important. The principal private •factories are mills for spinning and weaving cotton. The immense imperial establishments produce admirable specimens of Globelin tapestry, mirrors, arti cles in bronze, playing-cards, crystal, and porcelain.
St. Petersburg is little more than a century and a half old, and yet it takes rank among the first capitals in the world. It was founded by Peter the great, May 27, 1703. After a long struggle trainst the severe climate, insalubrious from the exhalations of of wide extended marshes, and from the arctic rigor which even yet can cover the Neva with ice a yard and a half thick, at length the town was founded and declared the capital in 1712. Under the successors of 'Peter, the improvement, embellishment, and extension of the city were carried on. Catharine II. constructed the great canals which, while they afford means of ready communication, serve also to drain the marsh lands, to' render the atmosphere more healthy, and to mitigate the rigors of winter. The city suffered great damage and the loss of several hundred lives in 1824 from an inunda tion of the Neva; and every April, when the ice breaks up, the lower regions of the city are threatened with a similar disister. At St. Petersburg all the ministers from foreign courts are bound to reside.