1 8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



from Tver to Astrakhan. Scientific laboratories maintained by the 

 government for the study of the zoological and biological life of the 

 river have been established at the principal fishing centers. Even in 

 winter fishing is kept up. The fish bury their heads in the mud, their 

 bodies rising upwards in the water. Holes are cut in the ice and the 

 fish are speared, a catch averaging from 6 to 12 fish per spear. The 

 caviar, of which there is the red and black variety, also comes chiefly 

 from this region. The roe is separated from the tissue, beaten through 

 a sieve, and salted for export or home consumption. 



In its lower course the Volga enters the great depression once cov- 

 ered by the waters of the Caspian sea. It flows sluggishly past Tsaritsin 

 through the gi-eat saline basin and finally loses itself in the Caspian at 

 Astrakhan. This great inland sea, despite the fact that it is only a 

 telic of its former self, is still the largest inland sea in the world, 

 Notwithstanding the fact that it has no outlet, and receives the inflow 

 of the Volga and the Ural, it is constantly declining in level. It is 

 already over 90 feet below the level of the Black Sea. Nor is this all. 

 Sudden and irregular fluctuations in the level have occurred so fre- 

 quently in recent years that geographers have the theory that there are 

 volcanic disturbances in the sea bed itself. 



But despite the wealth of the Volga, the Baku and other regions, the 

 Black Earth Belt is still much the most important. Upon the success 

 or failure of its crops depends in a large measure the prosperity of the 

 nation. Unfortunately the methods of agriculture, in most cases, are 

 still very primitive, but in this as in other matters of Eussian economic 

 history rapid progress is being made and generalizations are dangerous. 

 A visit to the fields of the sickle agriculture shows the small narrow 

 strips of medieval times separated not by fences, wood is too scarce in 

 the steppe region for that, but by a furrow or two left clear. A great 

 many of these side by side give the impression of large, very large, fields 

 of wheat, but the grain on each strip, small though it be, has a different 

 owner. Land tenure in many parts of Eussia since the emancipation of 

 the serf by Alexander II. has been communal. The title to all rural 

 land belonging to the peasantry was vested in the village community. 

 Hence the Eussian peasant was bound to his village which he could not 

 leave save with the consent of the elders ; he could not get his land in his 

 own right and farm it as he would; he could not even get his land 

 together in one piece. Instead it was scattered about in different parts 

 of the communal land making him waste much time going from one 

 strip to another. The village community was the absolute master and 

 in its assembly of elders it allotted the strips of land each member was 

 to have as his for cultivation. The result was inevitable. Not only 

 did indifferent farming follow, but with the increase in the population 

 the land had to be constantly re-divided, the strips becoming always 



