The Suicide of Professor L. L. Tove.

Adrianov.

Yesterday, at about 12 o’clock in the afternoon, in the professors’ room of the main building of the Technological Institute, the extraordinary professor of the Technological Institute in the Department of Mining, mining engineer Lev Lvovich Tove, ended his life with a shot from a revolver into his mouth. Such is the bare fact, entered into the chronicle of local life yesterday and striking, by its complete unexpectedness, the community of professors and students. The circumstances in which this sad event occurred provide no explanation for it.

On the morning of January 17, L. L. Tove was holding subject examinations in the mining building; having examined three students by 10 o’clock and given them grades of five, he then went over to the main building, where, in the presence of a commission of professors, the defense of diploma projects by two students graduating from the mining department was taking place. After the completion of one student’s defense, L. L. Tove withdrew to the professors’ room, and there he happened to be discovered by someone among the instructors who had entered that room—lying collapsed on a divan. Only after calling to L. L. and approaching him did the instructor realize what had happened. The bullet, which had pierced the skull, caused instantaneous death. No one heard the shot.

Conversations with some of those around L. L. Tove allow us, it seems, to lift the veil concealing from us the fatal decision taken by the deceased. It lay in the conditions of our terrible, unbearable life.

Since December 1 of last year, L. L. Tove had been appointed district commissioner for fuel, that is, upon him had been placed the duty of supplying with fuel—mineral and wood—the consumers of an enormous part of Siberia, beginning with the Akmolinsk region and ending with the Irkutsk province.

An enormous and responsible task, connected, amid our general disorder, with incredible difficulties, with daily ...

II.

with the reproaches and demands of dissatisfied consumers, frayed the nerves of the commissioner to such a degree that he was deprived of rest and sleep. And when people close to him advised him to give up this work, L. L. replied that he could not do so.

As if in confirmation of this conjecture of ours, there is the note left by L. L. Tove in the same professorial room where he parted with life. In this note he yielded his place to a man firmer in character and wished him happy success.

Undoubtedly, in the coming days L. L.’s colleagues, friends, and pupils will clarify the causes of so tragic an end and illuminate his activity, which I wish to touch upon only in the most general outlines.

An Englishman by origin, L. L. Tove in 1894 graduated from the Mining Institute in Petrograd and soon after completing it went to Siberia, where, on assignment from the Mining Department, he carried out statistical-economic investigations of gold placers in the districts of Tomsk and Yeniseisk provinces and the Primorskaya Region, taking an interest both as an expert in mining affairs and in the very organization of large-scale mining. For this purpose he even traveled to Kamchatka. The results of these investigations were published by him in a large three-volume work. These studies by L. L. Tove attracted the attention of Vl. Af. Obruchev, who had then begun to lecture on geology at the newly opened Technological Institute in Tomsk; on his initiative L. L. Tove was invited to the institute as a teacher of mining engineering, and since this discipline begins with the third year, the interval remaining between the opening of the institute and the opening of the third year was used, it seems, also on Obruchev’s initiative, to send L. L. Tove to North America, with the aim of studying there (in California and other districts) the organization of gold mining.

From 1902 L. L. Tove began to lecture at the institute on mining engineering, and used the summer months for trips to the Lena workings, to the gold mines of the Tomsk mining district, to the Kochkar system in the Urals, where he was invited as an expert in mining affairs.

Possessing a phenomenal memory, L. L., in everything concerning mining, was an encyclopedist.

Too gentle in character and incapable of refusing anyone a request, he was especially dear to the students. It is enough to say that from the founding of the Technological Institute and to this day all students who graduated from the institute in the mining department were his pupils, since he chiefly supervised their dipl—

...by their theses; of these pupils, more than a hundred were placed by L. L. Tove in positions, thanks to his enormous connections and acquaintances.

All these former pupils of L. L. Tove will especially feel the sharpness of the loss, irreparable both for them and, even more, for the future students of the institute.

Peace to his ashes.

On the Pupils of L. L. Tove

Prof. M. Usov.

Our common guide in mining in Siberia from the very foundation of the mining department of the Tomsk Technological Institute, Lev Lvovich, has departed from us to a better world; he has departed, broken by that storm which for the third year already has been raging over the expanses of the old world and which, directly or indirectly, has carried off many more victims. With his gentle, childlike, kindly character, inclined only toward peaceful cooperation in cultural work for the benefit of his second homeland, yet finding it impossible to withdraw from the overwhelming work of the present moment, he withered under the cold breath of harsh reality, and... drooped.

We, the pupils of the deceased, must keenly feel the irreparable loss for our cause in the person of Lev Lvovich: one could boldly turn to him for the resolution of any difficult question whatever in the field of the mining art and mining enterprise; he was personally acquainted with all the mining enterprises of our vast region and had visited the most remarkable mining and metallurgical establishments of almost all countries. It is possible that many did not know what an encyclopedia of mining Lev Lvovich represented, owing to the extraordinary modesty of his character, which did not strive to display his knowledge; but those who stood close to him are vividly aware that, with him, the higher mining school in Siberia has lost a man remarkable in many respects.

Further, being closely connected with the mining industry of Siberia and having an enormous acquaintance in the mining-industrial world, Lev Lvovich used all his influence to provide the students of the mining department of the institute with the summer practice necessary for the development of a mining engineer, and to find positions for his pupils who had graduated from the institute, and he constantly followed them in their practical activity. Without exaggeration it may be said that up to 50% of our comrades owe their position to him, and the news of the death of their guide must strike them by its unexpectedness, its prematureness.

IV.

At this present difficult time we have become accustomed to many losses, and it is hard to surprise us with anything; but this death is not easy to accept. May the memory of Lev Lvovich live constantly among us, and, as a wreath upon his grave, let us bring the promise to support the cause to which he devoted his entire, labor-filled life!

In Memory of Lev Lvovich Tove.

From the mining section of the student circle.

On January 17, 1917, our respected and beloved professor, L. L. Tove, departed from us prematurely into eternity.

The students of the mining department suffered in his person an extraordinarily heavy loss.

In this brief note we, the pupils of Lev Lvovich, shall not enumerate all the merits of the deceased before science and society, but would like only to express those feelings which the students had for him and for which they valued him.

In the person of Lev Lvovich we have lost not only a professor who possessed the most extensive knowledge, but also a man who responded in the highest degree to all our needs. Lev Lvovich always won universal love and respect from his pupils thanks to his warm-hearted, truly humane attitude toward everyone who had occasion to turn to him. His accessibility, delicacy, impartiality, and responsiveness will forever leave a bright memory of him.

As a professor, L. L. was for us an indispensable connecting link between the theoretical school and practical activity. Students could always turn to L. L. regarding any difficulty. This was especially felt in matters connected with summer practical work, since, thanks to his broad awareness of all Russian mining enterprises, he could better than anyone prepare students before their departure for summer practice.

As chairman of the mining section, L. L. was an active leader of various scientific and technical works and undertakings of the student body that went beyond the bounds of the official institute program. Many will forever remember his interesting and substantial speeches at reports and discussions in meetings of the mining section. In general, L. L. contributed greatly to the development of the activity of the student technical circle. Thanks to his extensive knowledge, he contributed much to his—

with his instructions for the rational replenishment of the circle’s library. Many books and journals were obtained by the library free of charge, thanks to L. L.’s acquaintance with authors and publishers.

In his capacity as dean of the mining department, L. L., with his clear and definite explanations, was always able to help a student find his way through the complex and cumbersome institute curriculum.

In the deceased one always sensed, alongside the desire to make the course of study easier, also the wish to raise the training of native engineers at the Tomsk Institute to such a level that their authority would be no less than that of engineers from the capitals.

In general, L. L. regarded the practical training of future mining figures as his foremost task, and this is his chief merit; but we must not forget also his broad scholarly and public activity, expressed in his constant participation in industrial and technical congresses and enterprises.

The memory of L. L. must forever remain at the Tomsk Technological Institute, and the mining section of the student technical circle, unanimously recognizing that the best way to perpetuate his memory would be the establishment of a scholarship in his name at the Tomsk Technological Institute, is at present engaged in clarifying the means of carrying out this idea.

In Memory of L. L. Tove.

D. Strelnikov.

In the person of L. L. Tove, Siberia has lost a man who devoted the best years of his life to it. For the last fifteen years he tirelessly pursued one goal: to provide, as far as his strength and means allowed, the mining industry of Siberia with mining-technical personnel.

As his pupil, I cannot help now recalling my student years, when my comrades and I, before the coming of spring and summer, boldly knocked at the door of our teacher’s office; we asked him to arrange “practical training” for us for the summer, while those of us in need asked him to intercede for assistance in one amount or another. And he, in every way, insofar as this was possible and depended on him personally, strove to render every kind of support, showing in such cases an almost paternal concern for us... To those departing for summer practical work he gave endless admonitory advice, always directly or indirectly emphasizing the especially important significance, in our future work, of becoming acquainted with the mining business on site.

I personally had, in addition, occasion to witness how—

VI.

L. L. contributed much participation, work, and initiative to the organization of secondary and lower mining education in Siberia. Soon after graduating from the institute I was invited as a teacher to what was then still a commercial school. At that time the idea had only just arisen of creating, in place of the commercial school, an entirely new type of secondary school in Russia—a polytechnic school with several departments. Over the course of seven-odd years I repeatedly saw L. L. within the walls of our school; he took the most active part, first in drafting the very bill on transforming this school into a polytechnic one, and then in the matter of organizing it. Naturally, he was especially interested in the mining department of this school, which to this day remains the only secondary mining school in all of Western Siberia; and it must be acknowledged that not a single question of any seriousness concerning this department was decided without prior discussion of it with the participation of L. L. A word of advice, personal participation in the work, advocacy on behalf of the school—he did all this willingly, at the first call. By the present moment, when the equipping of the mining department is almost complete, I had arranged with L. L. at Christmas that no later than Shrovetide he would visit all the teaching and auxiliary institutions serving the department, but this was not destined to come to pass…

At the beginning of last year the idea arose of opening technical courses by the “Society of Professors and Teachers.” L. L. supported the necessity of opening, under them, a mining department as well, for those who had already left school age or who, after working in mining in lower positions, wished to supplement their mining-technical education.

A proposal was submitted to the Society of Siberian Engineers by the trustee of the West Siberian educational district to discuss the question of organizing vocational education in Siberia. He took the most active part in working out this question in general and, in particular, in that part of it which concerned his beloved field of mining.

How much importance L. L. attached to raising the general cultural and professional development among mine workers is clear from the fact that he repeatedly raised this question, welcomed the idea that had arisen of organizing courses for mining foremen at the polytechnic school, and further, when he came for the last time from Petrograd, he insisted on organizing at least temporary courses for workers in one of the large centers of our coal industry.

Now, when one still does not want to believe that he is no longer among us, it is difficult to say how much still remains unfulfilled of what

VII.

...was intended by him for the development of mining in Siberia, but what he did for this cause is, I think, sufficient that his name not disappear without a trace from the history of the development of mining in Siberia. As a member of the Society of Siberian Engineers he contributed very greatly to that society’s carrying out one of its direct tasks: to bring science closer to life—and the best perpetuation of his memory will be if this Society puts into effect the resolution already adopted by its board: to establish a fund in the name of L. L. Tove, the interest from which would be awarded annually by the Society to students of the local institute going for summer practical work at plants, mines, or factories. In this way the Society would, as far as possible, mark the scholarly and public activity of L. L. and the especially precious spiritual quality in the man who has prematurely left us: an infinite love for the rising generation. One must hope that his pupils, friends, and the industrial world will create something worthy of his name and of his services to the region.

Preserving my own bright memories of L. L., I shall say once more together with the others: may the earth lie lightly upon you, dear teacher!

L. L. Tove.

Prof. P. Gudkov.

Several days have already passed since the death of Lev Lvovich Tove, yet it is still difficult to gather one’s thoughts; dear memories still replace one another in disorder. Still, I would like to add, with a few strokes, to that image which has been drawn so warmly and lovingly in the sketches dedicated to the deceased by his acquaintances and pupils.

“For the good of the cause I must step aside...” — thus did Lev Lvovich explain to us his decision to leave us; and in these words he reflected his most characteristic trait. Yes, he always tried to yield his place to others; he was always inclined to think that others were better and more worthy than he. Is it any wonder that, with such extraordinary modesty, he remained, even for people comparatively close to him, insufficiently appreciated in many respects?

Thus, now, of course, many know that in his specialty Lev Lvovich was a very prominent authority. But I am almost certain that far from everyone imagines the significance of him even in this respect; they do not suppose that the chair of mining art at the Tomsk Technological Institute, whose principal subject was intended to be gold mining, would, without Lev Lvovich, have remained vacant for several years, that Lev Lvovich...

VIII.

was then not only the worthiest, but the only candidate in all Russia for this chair, and that gold mining, as an independent subject of mining-technical education in our country, in Russia, was created by him—Lev Lvovich. Meanwhile, this is undoubtedly so. Until the 1900s there were very few mining engineers in Siberia, and in general; and in the service of gold-mining enterprises there were hardly more than ten of them. But even these few stood not so close to the technology of gold mining, occupying almost exclusively higher administrative posts. The same may be said of the other mining-industrial regions of our fatherland. And it could not have been otherwise: the only higher mining school in all Russia—the Petrograd Mining Institute—sometimes graduated fifty, or a little more, engineers a year. In the program of mining art at this institute, the chief attention was paid to the technology of working coal and ore deposits, while only a few pages were devoted to gold mining.

In short, neither in the state of the gold industry nor in the organization of higher mining-technical education were there then conditions that made it possible to study gold mining thoroughly and comprehensively. But those exceptional qualities—curiosity and persistence—which, according to the words of Lev Lvovich’s teachers and school comrades, had distinguished him even during his time at the Mining Institute, helped him to overcome all obstacles. And some three years after graduating from the higher school, when he began his systematic economic investigations in the South Yenisei mining district and when I made his acquaintance, he was already such an expert in his chosen specialty that he made, I remember, a colossal impression on many prominent practitioners who were then serving at the mines of the South Yenisei taiga and who until then had regarded the views of mining engineers in gold-mining technology with great skepticism.

I am sure that far from everyone also clearly understood the valuable qualities of Lev Lvovich as a professor of the Tomsk Technological Institute. True, everyone knew that, thanks to his extensive acquaintance and connections in the mining-industrial world, he always had at his disposal a mass of offers both for students and for engineers. But this by no means exhausted his significance for the mining department of our institute: he tried to place his pupils in accordance with the inclinations and abilities of each of them; he attentively followed their subsequent engineering activity and, from the difficulties they encountered in carrying out the practical tasks confronting them, strove to note the gaps and shortcomings in the existing organization of our teaching. It must also be noted that, through po—

IX.

Through Lev Lvovich, our mining department established ties with the higher mining schools of America, and several young engineers sent there by us can say that Tove’s card opened for them access to many of the most eminent authorities of the scholarly world of the transatlantic republic, and everywhere secured them an attentive, cordial reception.

Lev Lvovich was of altogether exceptional stature also in respect of his erudition. In one of the notes about him it was observed that he was, as it were, a living encyclopedia of mining. But in order to clarify the true meaning of this fair and apt remark, it must be said that Lev Lvovich was not only excellently acquainted with all the mining enterprises of our fatherland, but could always provide exhaustive data on the history of these enterprises, unfailingly enumerating all the chronological dates, names, geographical designations, and so forth pertaining to each given case. Yet even with such explanations the characterization of Lev Lvovich’s erudition would be incomplete, unless it were said that his knowledge went far beyond the bounds of his direct specialty. I had occasion more than once to convince myself, for example, that Lev Lvovich was abreast of current geological literature, distinctly remembered all the journeys undertaken to various corners of Siberia, clearly understood the aims of these journeys, and very skillfully, in a few words, could characterize their results. And anyone who had occasion even once to see Lev Lvovich among his close friends, when he departed from his usual shyness, will, I am firmly convinced, forever retain in memory his lively, figurative speech, sprinkled with apt comparisons and examples from Russian, Western European, and ancient history, from classical and the most recent literature, and even from the Bible. And it would be a mistake to think that, in his vast and many-sided knowledge, Lev Lvovich owed everything only to his astonishing memory and to the fact that he had traveled lengthwise and crosswise through our Siberia and had visited Western Europe and America. No, the main thing here must be seen in something else: in taking upon himself any task whatever, he approached it only after thorough preparation and could not carry out a single matter otherwise than with all his strength. Such he was also in his last work. I know that for a long time he hesitated to take the post offered to him of district fuel commissioner, and in the end agreed, I think, only because of the gentleness of his character, and because he did not consider himself entitled to evade so important a task at that moment. And once he had agreed, he did not admit the possibility of refusal; and when he became convinced, perhaps, that with all his ardent desire he was not able to overcome certain obstacles, that to hundreds of telegrams

With pleas, demands, and, perhaps, reproaches, he could react only with the torments of his good heart; he found for himself only one way out—to “step aside.”

Lev Lvovich Tove.

N. Penn.

In the notes dedicated to the memory of Lev Lvovich, his friends and acquaintances have outlined, with sufficient fullness, the traits of the deceased’s charming personality, his outstanding erudition and colossal knowledge of Siberia, and have also characterized in general terms his activity. I wish to note several further facts which, it seems to me, make it possible to form a fuller idea of Lev Lvovich’s services to the Mining Department of the Tomsk Technological Institute, which to this day remains the only higher technical school in Siberia. In his striving to create a cadre of practical workers capable of conducting independent research on methods for processing the ores of our vast Siberia, Lev Lvovich repeatedly raised the question of organizing a corresponding special laboratory, and at his insistence this question recently received, at last, practical implementation; and now it is doubly painful to realize that Lev Lvovich was not fated to see the results of his aspirations.

At the suggestion of Prof. V. Ya. Mostovich, this laboratory ought to be dedicated in the name of Lev Lvovich. True, this is somehow not customary among us, but in the United States the greater part of analogous laboratories bears the name of its founder, and, it seems to me, in practice such a proposal is easily realizable. This memorial would be, even if posthumously, a reward for those labors which Lev Lvovich invested in the organization of the laboratory for the concentration of ores.

One must also point to the library attached to the mining cabinet, of which the Tomsk Institute may be proud. This library is wholly due to Lev Lvovich. Its completeness may be judged from the fact that it is not inferior to the mining library at the Boston Technological Institute, known far beyond the borders of America.

Being always in contact with theoretical and practical workers, Lev Lvovich left bright memories of himself not only in various corners of his homeland. In England and America I had occasion to meet people who personally remembered Lev Lvovich’s stay abroad, and I will say that these conversations

considerably shortened the cold, businesslike atmosphere and carried our thoughts away to distant Siberia.

Lev Lvovich took an active part in various public organizations, and to us, as members of the Society of Siberian Engineers, he was especially close. On the initiative of Prof. P. P. Gudkov, the editorial committee of the Bulletin of the Society decided to dedicate one of the forthcoming issues to the memory of the deceased.

This irreparable loss is felt especially keenly by us, his colleagues at the institute. The mining department has been left orphaned, and the door to Lev Lvovich’s office will no longer open—the door that had always hospitably received everyone who came for advice. And people came to Lev Lvovich for the resolution of various questions: not only students, former pupils, or colleagues, but also industrialists; and Lev Lvovich always listened attentively to everyone, entered into the matter of each, often with such depth as though it were his own, intimate concern, and everyone left satisfied, knowing that Lev Lvovich’s advice would help him.

In Memory of L. L. Tove.

Adrianov.

Not only those close to the deceased, but also all who knew him even somewhat, who came into contact with him, are in these days under the powerful impression of the fatal end of a life so valuable and so necessary.

In one way or another, the force of this impression will pour itself out and leave a noticeable trace both in print and in the realization of the memory of the dear departed.

I should like to add even now one more stroke to this remembrance, one flower to his crown of thorns. How many times, P. I. Makushin told me, L. L. Tove came to my shop to hand over now 25 rubles, now 50 rubles, for some need of which he had learned, and each time, while handing over the money, he asked that it not be connected in the accounts with his name.

Having learned in the autumn of last year of the emergence of the “Society for Promoting the Organization of Reasonable Amusements in the Villages and Hamlets of Tomsk Province,” L. L. Tove came to P. I. Makushin with the statement that he sympathized with such an organization and was contributing five hundred rubles for its needs, but only on one condition: that it should nowhere be indicated that this money had been given by him.

— But how am I to show the receipt of such a large sum in the accounts? asked P. I. Makushin.

— Just enter it as from “an unknown person,” was the answer.

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The condition was accepted and, to the present minute, has been kept secret.

Comparing with this the fact that in the drawer of L. L. Tove’s desk, after his death, there were found 5 rubles 50 kopecks and 18 rubles in the wallet that was with him, and his debt to the institute’s mutual-aid fund amounted to several hundred rubles; and knowing that, despite a very modest way of life, he received quite a large salary, one cannot fail to see what rare kindness and nobility of heart the deceased possessed.

I do not remember who told me, but I heard that, in view of his ill-fated new post as district fuel commissioner, he deemed the salary assigned to him excessively large and was himself limiting its amount.

At the Fresh Grave

Vl. Bakh.

“For the good of the cause I must step aside and hand it over into firmer hands. I wish success—may it go more quickly.”

Such is the content of the note left by Prof. L. L. Tove. One must ponder these dying words and, at the present time, look around.

Then we shall understand that before us is the extraordinary death of a man worn down by the daily routine of life.

We shall understand that here is the whole drama of a citizen who knew only one way out of the tragically developing circumstances: with the shield, or upon the shield.

The friends and pupils of the deceased have raised before society the curtain over the sorrowful event.

He was a gentle, sympathetic, accessible man and scholar, enjoying universal recognition and love.

Had he died as hundreds of public figures die, his memory would long have been preserved in the hearts of those close to him and of all who, in one way or another, had come into contact with him.

But this death, suddenly accepted by him, death at his post, casts an especially bright light upon the personality of the deceased, surrounding him with a halo of selfless service, raising his very name before the face of his contemporaries.

To him had been entrusted a most responsible matter. Without exaggeration one may say that upon the successful resolution of the tasks that fell to him depended the fate of the economic life of an enormous territory and, perhaps, the very normal course of affairs of state importance.

XIII.

Did the deceased realize what work was being laid upon his shoulders? Not only did he realize it, but all the while he felt it keenly, “depriving himself, toward the end, of sleep and rest.”

He “did not find it possible to evade work beyond his strength.”

And this was his first step upon the thorny path of duty.

The deep organic disorder of economic life, the countless brakes at every step, the general depressed legal consciousness in the public milieu, the stubborn unwillingness to take account of the commands of the fatally unfolding course of events—such is that abyss of time into which one cannot look without being filled with dread.

“My God, let this cup pass from me”!

The deceased, as they say, did not at once, not without agonizing hesitations, accept the cup brought to him...

But, having once accepted it, he drank it to the bottom.

He dropped it from his hands as he died.

Not everyone will discern and understand him, who lived half a century and suddenly turned away from life in order to... “stand aside”!..

Consider, reader, the meaning of this simple word: “to stand aside.”

From whom, in these last, terrible years, unprecedented in history, have we heard this—and had we ever heard it before?

A procession of faces from public life has passed before us.

With extraordinary ease they ascended and descended the steps of the great staircase, scarcely touching the heavy mace of duty, and in their very movement not concealing the pitiful cravings of an empty heart.

Oh, these did not suffer from sleeplessness, did not deprive themselves of rest, did not flee the comforts of life.

And no one will ever reproach them for excessive softness of character, for nervousness, for the fatal ailment of doubt.

Great and small, in various positions and ranks, they stood and still stand—fearless and impassive.

That shot rang out... Could it be heard there?

They are deaf from birth, and the echo of the shot will not reach them.

But all those to whom the motherland is dear, who know the great price of redemption—did they not hear it?

One more sacrifice to duty...

May it be blessed; may it not darken our consciousness.

It is not unbelief, not weakness that we observe here, but strength; it is the courage of a most sincere member of society.

Society has the right to be proud of such men: in them lie our conscience, our strength, our faith in the future.

We may suffer torment over the fresh, untimely grave.

But we must not forget, beneath the weight of grief, that the Russian public spirit is a great, invincible, bright force, giving birth before our eyes, in our own days, to martyr-heroes.

Let the calm, self-satisfied people, who know no fear before duty, stand aside—society, relying on the people’s will, a society that knows how to die, creates unheard-of miracles, turning a desert into a blossoming garden.

Speech by the Director of the Tomsk Technological Institute, I. I. Bobarykov,

at the first meeting of the Institute Council after the death of L. L. Tove.

Gentlemen, members of the Council.

The Council of the Institute has suffered a grievous loss—our comrade Lev Lvovich Tove has died.

The grave is still too fresh, the shock of this tragic death has not yet passed, for it to be possible to assess the full weight of the loss. In opening this, the first meeting after the passing of Lev Lvovich, I nevertheless consider it my duty to honor, if only in a few words, the memory of the deceased.

A long-time colleague has departed from us, one who worked in the creation and development of our Institute—the first higher technical school in Siberia. L. L.’s excellent acquaintance with this vast and rich region was of extraordinary value to us; the late man’s guidance and advice in everything that concerned Siberia and its many particular features were irreplaceably precious. A knowledgeable and attentive professor, L. L. was at the same time a remarkable comrade. Very modest in regard to himself, he always noticed and emphasized even insignificant merits in others. Honest, straightforward, punctual in the fulfillment of his duties, L. L. was very considerate toward his co-workers and was always ready to help with his advice and assistance.

And the student body of the Institute, as always—more sensitive because of its youth—characterized L. L. very expressively by the inscription on a wreath, where on the ribbons only two words were written: “to the friend of the students.”

Biography of L. L. Tove

V. A. Obruchev.

Lev Lionelevich Tove was born on November 23, 1867, at the Lysva Works in the Urals; his father was the British subject Lionel Tove, and his mother was Yulia Modestovna, née Khiryakova.

After graduating from the Richelieu Gymnasium in Odessa, L. L. entered Petrograd University, in the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, where he spent two years, and in 1888 transferred to the Mining Institute, from which he graduated in June 1894 in the first category. On June 8 he was appointed to service in the Mining Department, with assignment to the Administration for the Construction of the Siberian Railway in Petrograd, where he remained until the spring of 1895, when he was sent to perform the duties of junior engineer for carrying out surveys of the Amur Railway. Upon the completion of the surveys, in the autumn the question of the occupation of Manchuria was settled and the construction of the Amur Railway was cancelled; however, L. L. had to remain in Blagoveshchensk, and only in May 1896 did L. L. leave for Petrograd.

In connection with the construction of the railway line through Siberia, geological investigations were carried out of the area adjoining the line, and then there began also a study of the gold-bearing districts of Siberia—geological, as well as statistical-economic and technical—whose task was to clarify the state of the gold industry in the region and to provide material for devising measures for its strengthening. L. L. took part in these works from the very beginning, and on May 7, 1897, was sent as head of a party to conduct a statistical-economic and technical investigation of the gold industry in the Yenisei Province; he personally examined and studied the mines of the South Yenisei system, and the result of his work was the report published in 1899 by the Commission for the Study of the Gold Industry in Siberia*.

Hardly had L. L. Tove finished the manuscript of this work when, on March 3, 1898, he was sent for two years to the Amur and Primorye regions as head of a party for the same kind of investigation of the gold industry, jointly with mining engineer V. D. Ryazanov and agronomist D. V. Ivanov; with the first, L. L. worked in the Primorye Region, with the second—in the Amur Region, and upon returning from the Far East to Petrograd he was occupied in 1900–1901

* L. L. Tove and M. F. Gorbachev. Report on the statistical-economic and technical investigation of the gold industry of the southern part of the Yenisei District. St. Petersburg. 480 pp., with 10 photographic plates and 2 volumes of appendices.

the compilation of the reports issued by the same commission in 1902–1905.**)

Thus, over three years of field work and two years of processing the materials collected, L. L. became closely acquainted with both small-scale and large-scale gold mining in several large regions of Siberia, which had developed at different times and under different economic conditions, in areas with diverse conditions of gold-bearing deposits. Therefore, when in the autumn of 1901 the Mining Department was opened at the Tomsk Technological Institute and a competition was announced for filling the chair in mining engineering, the commission evaluating the merits of the candidates who wished to occupy this chair naturally gave preference to L. L. Tove, as a person well acquainted with the gold-mining industry—an branch of mining that had the greatest importance for Siberia. L. L. was elected by the Department and by the Council, and from September 6, 1902, was appointed acting extraordinary professor in the chair of mining engineering at the Institute.

Since lectures in mining engineering were to begin only in the autumn of 1903, when the third year of the Mining Department was opened, the year at L. L.’s disposal was used by him for thorough preparation for occupying the chair; at the request of the Institute, L. L. received authorization for travel in Russia and abroad until September 1, 1903; he visited a number of mines in the Urals and in the South of Russia, then certain mines and higher mining schools in Germany, Belgium, and England, and finally traveled to the United States of North America, where he became acquainted with a number of mining enterprises, chiefly in the western states, and with the mining departments of several universities. The purpose of the trip was to study the contemporary organization of instruction in mining engineering, the organization of museums and laboratories for mining in the leading countries, and to become acquainted with the latest advances and the state of the mining industry at the best enterprises of Europe and America. Knowledge of English from childhood enabled L. L. to derive the greatest benefit from the trip to England and America and to make useful acquaintances at mining schools and mines, with whom he maintained relations afterward. During the trip L. L. ordered from the Freiberg Mining Academy a number of models in mining engineering for the Institute’s mining museum, and from America brought a small collection of ores, donated by him to the Institute’s geological museum.

From the autumn of 1903 L. L. began to deliver lectures in mining engineering and soon was elected secretary of the Mining Department, which—

) Report on the statistical-economic and technical investigation of the gold-mining industry of the Amur–Primorye region. Vol. I, Primorye Oblast, 374+255 pp., with tables and maps; Vol. II, Amur Oblast, Part 1, 389+321 pp., with tables and photographic plates; Part 2, appendices.

for almost six years. Having numerous acquaintances among gold-mining and mining-industry men, as well as mining engineers, at the placer mines and ore mines of Siberia, the Urals, and European Russia, L. L. took upon himself the entire task of finding summer practical training for the students of the Mining Department, conducted all correspondence with the administrations of placer mines, mines, and plants, assigned students to paid and unpaid positions as trainees, gave them instructions and directions, and received reports from them. In general, the entire organization and conduct of this work, necessary and important for the training of mining engineers, was always in his hands, and thanks to his constant communications his personal awareness of the state of the Russian mining industry was very great.

From 1904 L. L. began to lecture in the fourth year on “gold mining”—a completely new subject, separated from the general course of mining art because of its special importance for Siberian mining engineers and developed in full detail by L. L.; this course included a general survey of the gold placer mines and ore mines of Siberia and the Urals, prospecting and working of auriferous placers and lode deposits, washing of sands and treatment of ores, sampling and valuation of placers and veins, etc. In the same year L. L. also lectured on “ore concentration,” with which he had become well acquainted in North America, and in the fifth year on “mine management,” and directed the students’ general and special designing in mining art and gold mining. In addition, L. L. gradually created a mining museum and a special library attached to the mining cabinet, which students could use in design work and in their diploma projects.

Attentively following foreign literature on mining, L. L., from the very first years of his activity at the Tomsk Technological Institute, dreamed of establishing a special laboratory for ore concentration, similar to those existing at certain higher mining educational institutions in North America, i.e., a laboratory in which not only mineralogical and chemical investigation of ores would be carried out, but also experiments in the mechanical separation of the minerals composing a complex ore mass, the production of ore concentrates of one composition or another, the study of the resulting tailings with the aim of determining their possible utilization, and experiments with such quantities of ore as would make it possible to draw not only theoretical but also practical conclusions about the applicability of one method or another. L. L. knew perfectly well what enormous benefit such laboratories bring to mining in the United States and what significant role they played in the extraordinarily rapid development and improvement of methods of ore concentration. But the realization of this laboratory was hindered by the lack of funds and by the constant refusals of the Ministry of Public Education to grant new appropriations to the Tomsk Technological Institute.

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an institute which, almost from its very foundation, thanks to the trustee of the educational district Lavrent’ev, had acquired in the eyes of the ministry the reputation of a revolutionary nest, which could not be trusted and which was in every way oppressed and curtailed. And only in the very last years, already under Minister Count Ignat’ev, was this question finally resolved and the laboratory established, although only on a modest scale.

From the beginning of 1909 to the beginning of 1913 L. L. was dean of the Mining Division. L. L. often devoted the summer vacation period to trips to the goldfields and mines of various parts of Siberia and the Urals, in order to acquaint himself with their condition and with the new methods being applied in exploitation; he visited the mines of the Altai and Salair, the goldfields of the South Yenisei, Lena, and Amur systems, and many mines of the Urals; he was especially interested in the application of new mechanical methods for working gold-bearing placers by means of dredges and excavators, the use of compressors and perforators, drilling in placer exploration, and so on. In the winter of 1905–6, during a break in academic instruction, he managed for several months one of the coal mines in the Cheremkhovo basin of Irkutsk Province. For a number of years he was also a consultant to the Russian Gold-Mining Society and, in that capacity, visited the mines and goldfields of this society in Siberia.

In the winter of 1906 L. L. submitted to the Mining Division, as a dissertation, his report—published shortly before—on the statistical-economic and technical investigation of the gold-mining industry of the Amur and Primorye regions. As the chief reviewer and future opponent at the defense of the dissertation, the Division appointed the instructor of mine-surveying art P. K. Sobolevskii, as the only mining engineer among the Division’s staff whose specialty was closest to mining art. The latter, having examined the report, declared to the Division that this work in no way met the requirements imposed on dissertations, since it did not represent an independent treatment of any question in the field of mining art. The Division, unfortunately, agreed with this conclusion, failing to take into account that the reviewer himself, who had no printed works of any kind, could scarcely have been sufficiently competent in evaluating others’ work, and did not appoint another person, even from outside its own circle. L. L., in his extreme modesty, hastened to take back his dissertation and, discouraged by this failure, decided to leave teaching activity, for which reason he asked the Division to consider the chair occupied by him vacant and to announce a competition for it. But the persons who entered the competition were not elected, and the Division had to ask L. L. to withdraw his statement and remain at the chair.

The report by L. L., rejected by the reviewer, may, from a formal point of view, not have conformed to the usual type of dissertations; but it was a serious work, in which the extensive material gathered by the researcher was not only classified and set forth systematically, but also illuminated critically, so that in the end there emerged a sufficiently complete and correct picture of the contemporary state of the gold-mining industry in the Far East. And this critical illumination of the question could have served as a subject for comments and objections by an opponent sufficiently familiar with gold mining. But Mr. Sobolevsky did not possess such familiarity at all, and therefore in essence could not be either a reviewer or an opponent; I, who at that time was dean, bear the blame for not having drawn the Department’s attention to this circumstance and not having proposed that another reviewer, more familiar with the subject of the work submitted as a dissertation, be elected.

I believe that this unfortunate misunderstanding was the reason why L. L., a very modest man and, moreover, prone to self-doubt, completely lost the desire to publish the rich material of his observations at the placer mines and ore mines of Siberia, and thereafter printed no works and did not even publish his courses on “gold deposits” and “ore dressing,” although he had them in manuscript and students used them in preparing for examinations. Self-doubt and uncertainty in his own abilities were also the chief cause of the premature and tragic end of the life of L. L., devoted wholly to the mining industry of Siberia and to teaching, which lost in L. L. a selfless and devoted worker.