a large city, capital of an extensive district in Asiatic Russia. It is situated on the Tom, about twenty-five miles from its junction with the Obi. Like most of the Siberian cities, it was originally a small wooden fort; but being consumed by fire, it was rebuilt on a larger scale in 1648. It is built on remarkably irregular and broken ground; especially the old part of the town, where the streets are narrow and winding, and the houses out of all manner of order. But the town being built mostly of wood, and liable to frequent fires, an opportunity was given of erecting houses and streets on a regular plan. Within the circuit of the Kremlin, a fortress constructed in the seventeenth century, and now almost entirely in ruins, are the cathedral church, the tribunals, the treasury, with the magazine of furs collected as tribute. In the other part of the city is the church of the resurrection, the principal edifice; and there are two convents, one of monks, the other of nuns. The place is very advantageously situated for commerce, by which the inhabitants chiefly subsist, being on the great line of rivers which connects Tobolsk with the Chinese frontier and the eastern parts of Siberia. It is also the centre of the trade in spirits, which are brought hither from the distilleries on the Tobol and the Iset, and hence distributed to the countries eastward. The inhabitants are not so civilized as those of Tobolsk and Irkoutsk, and they are much addicted to intoxication. Pallas mentions that, prevalent as this vice is in Siberia, he never saw a town where it was so common as at Tomsk. The population, amounting to upwards of 11,000, consist, besides Russians, of a great number of Tartar, Bucharin, and Kazak merchants. Tomsk has been erected into the capital of a government, which comprehends a great part of the countries situated on the Obi, and most of those on the Yenisei. Long. 84.10. E. Lat. 58.30. N.