ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA.

DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: We live in St. Petersburg. It is very cold in winter; the river gets frozen up so that we can drive over it. We skate nearly every day when it is not too cold. The finest church in St. Petersburg is St. Isaac's. The icons are made of precious stones, rubies, and diamonds. There is a beautiful statue of Peter the Great opposite the Senate or Parliament. We think the nicest of the stories in this year's magazine is "June's Garden."

From your loving friends MARGARET WHISHAW, M. VERA MCCALLUM.

FORDHAM, N. Y. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I reside, as you see above, in Fordham, which is a part of New York City. It was here that one of America's greatest poets, Edgar Allan Poe, lived for a time. I read in a newspaper not long ago that the city had bought the house in which he lived, and that the Department of Public Parks intend to move it across the road into a park which will be set aside for this old relic. In front of the cottage they will erect a statue of Poe sitting in a chair, and upon his shoulder will be perched the famous Raven. I am your constant reader,

EUGENE THORNE WALTER.

SUMMIT HILL, PA. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I am eleven years old, and I have taken you for nearly five years, and enjoy your stories very much.

I have been to Wisconsin twice, and I think it is a very nice State.

I will tell you about the town I live in. It is a very small town, but it is noted for its coal-mines. It contains one of the largest veins of coal in the world. We have a mine here that caught fire from an explosion, and it has been burning for thirty-five years. An excursion road runs in here. It is called the Switchback; and coming back on its return trip it has to go up two high places. The first, Mt. Pisgah, is a great many feet high, while Mt. Jefferson is 1662 feet above sea-level. I remain your constant reader, RUSSELL WALTON.

RUSSELL, KANSAS. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: My name is Winifred Hall, and I am twelve years old. We take ST. NICHOLAS, and our family took it before I or Harry was born. Ever since I can remember it has come on the 25th of each month. I can hardly wait till the 25th comes, and then I cannot rest till I have read the magazine. I like it more and more, and think it has improved each year.

I am near-sighted and have to wear glasses. Sometimes my eyes hurt, and I cannot use them; but that never happens on the 25th. I have a folio that I call

the ST. NICHOLAS folio, and I keep all the pictures in the front of ST. NICHOLAS. Some of them are beautiful. I have a ten-year-old cousin named Leland Copeland. We buy tablets with large colored pictures on the cover, and then we make up stories about them, and write them in it. My last story is about "The Queen of Dwarf-land." We both have rubber Brownie stamps, and we print them. Sometimes we write poetry too. One of my poems is "No Thanksgiving Day.'

We have one room in Leland's or my house where we have a play-house. We build cities out of the blocks, and have dolls to represent people. First we had Washington, the capital of the United States, and McKinley, Hobart, Bryan, Sewall, the Capitol, White House, stores, hotels, depot, and other places. Now we have a place we call Snowhill; and we built a palace, and have my Eskimo doll dressed up for the Sultan. He has a silver sword and servants and children. We always have stores and other things too. Good-by. From your friend, WINIFRED HALL.

BERLIN, GERMANY. DEAR ST. NICHOLAS: I have never written to you before; but I have taken you for five years, and before that time a friend lent me your bound volumes to read.

I am at present living in Berlin; but until quite lately I was staying at the picturesque little town of Vevay in Switzerland. I am an enthusiastic mountain-climber, and have made some fairly difficult ascensions while in Switzerland. One mountain that I climbed the Diab. lons-was nearly 14,000 feet high. I went in company with a friend and two guides. It was a very rough scramble. We stayed that summer in a big hotel situated in a valley about 5000 feet above the level of the sea. All about us lay the great glaciers and some of the highest peaks of the Swiss Alps. One had to cross a very difficult pass to get to Zermatt; the day after we left an English lady was killed there.

Once we made an excursion from this place to a hut of refuge of the Swiss Alpine Club which overlooked a glorious glacier. To reach the hut we had to walk several hours on this glacier, once even cutting steps in the ice- and all in the month of July!

The summer before this I was in Chamonix, at the foot of Mont Blanc.

However, last summer I made my crowning and last excursion to the Dent (tooth) of Barmaz, 7500 feet high. I made this ascent with one guide, from the north side, which had until then been accomplished only twice, so that I was the third.

We started in the afternoon, and slept that night in a châlet on a mountain. The next morning at 3 A. M. we started with a lantern, for it was so dark one could scarcely see anything. It was quite a difficult climb, first, for one hour up a steep slant of black ice (with rocks below) into which we had to cut steps with our ice-axes, and then for a long while over rocks to the summit. We were roped together for almost three hours. During the descent, which we made on the side, we came sud