"Did you ever hear," said a gentleman to me, "of rats devouring window-glass, or of anchors and boiler iron blowing away in the wind ?" However startling such phenomena, he declared they had been known at Nicolayevsk and elsewhere in the empire.

I think if all the truth were revealed we might learn of equally strange occurrences in America during the late war.
The Russians have explored very thoroughly the coast of Manjouria in search of good harbors.

Below De Castries the first of importance is Barracouta Bay, in Latitude 49 deg.

The government made a settlement there in 1853, but subsequently abandoned it for Olga Bay, six degrees further south.

Vladivostok, or Dominion of the East, was occupied in 1857, and a naval station commenced.