A CITY IN SPITE OF NATURE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 20 May 1915, Page 2

A CITY IN SPITE OF NATURE.

It ts an amazing monument to. the despotism of the Czars that Petrograd has nourished, as it was built, in defiance of the laws of trade and of Nature herself. As a port it is immeasurably inferior to Riga, which has a mucn longer open season, for Petrograd is icebound from early November to the end of April. As a building site it has been repeatedly and disastrously flooded by the Neva. The highest elevation within the bounds of the city is less than fifteen feet above sea level, and the cellars have to be baled out nearly every spring when the ice melts and the wind bows. The rigorous climate constantly gnaws at walls and columns until the city has been twice and thrice rebuilt by the Czars. Many of the most imposing structures are held together only by means of iron clamps, and the huge boulder on which Peter rides his bronze horse is ever crumbling away. The stones of the streets are continually sinking below the level and the great Cathedral of St. Isaac never ceases to settle ©n a foundatobn in which nearly £200,000 was sunk. No less than six tiers of piles were driven, for the beautiful column of Alexander 1., yet that eighty-foot monolith, the tallest and lafgest in. Europe, has to be damped in iron. As a dwelling place Petrograd remains.,the most fatal of any great city in +,he civilised world, with a mortality of 28 to each 1000 of population, and witkin ten years its death rate actually exceeded 'its birth rate. -