INTKODUCTION. XIX 



at about 20 kopecks a pond, the latter can here easily supplant the use of wood. 

 Good Eussian coal is supplied to the Moscow region from the Donets basin, a dis- 

 tance of about eleven hundred versts, and partly from Poland. Coal from the Urals 

 also may be sent thither by the Kama and Volga, while English coal may come 

 from St. Petersburg. Formerly no small number of Moscow manufactories and mills 

 were furnished with the latter, until Moscow was opened to Donets coal by the 

 lowering of the railway rates. 



Side by side with wood fuel and with coal from the above regions and from 

 the neighbouring governments of Tula and Eiazau, local peat and naplitha residues 

 from Baku are now applied as fuel in large quantities in the Moscow district. 

 The value of peat, in a dried and pressed state as fuel is not inferior to that of 

 wood. As the owners of the works are able to supply themselves with it from the 

 neighbouring localities, in case of an insufticiency of wood they prefer peat, the 

 getting and carriage of which furnish winter wages to the surrounding population. 

 But as peat yields little heat in proportion to its bulk, it does not pay to transport 

 it very far. In this respect naphtha residues possess the excellent quality of con- 

 taining in a small weight the greatest amount of heat, as 60 to 70 ponds of naphtha 

 residues replace in a steam engine 100 pouds of the best coal, or about 250 ponds 

 of wood, or as much as 300 pouds of dry peat. And as the price of a poud of resi- 

 dues in Baku is not more than 3 to 5 kopecks, and in the reservoirs of Nizhni-Nov- 

 gorod, whither the residues are forwarded by the Caspian sea and the Volga, about 

 150 kopecks, they cost in Moscow in the railway cisterns about 21 to 23 kopecks 

 per poud. At this price they compete easily with all other kinds of local and im- 

 ported fuel in Moscow and vicinity, because the art of employing petroleum waste 

 for all technical purposes, such as the stocking of steam engines, the welding and 

 smelting of all kinds of metals, is already spread over the whole of Eussia. At 

 any rate for the industrial development of the Moscow region the question of cheap 

 mineral fuel demands the greatest attention. Its dearness limits the growth at least 

 of those industries which require mnch fuel. 



It is not improbable that coal will be found in the deep strata of the Moscow 

 region, because coal-bearing formations probably lie under the whole of the section, 

 as was already indicated by Murchison. But however serious might become the im- 

 portance of fuel for the Moscow region, however cheap it might be in some other 

 districts of Eussia. as in those of the Donets, the Ural or Poland, Moscow at any 

 rate now concentrates so many enterprising people and forms such an advanced eco- 

 nomical centre that it will long remain at the head of the extensive manufacturing 

 development destined for Eussia. 



II. The Baltic and Petersburg Region. 



To this region must be reckoned the governments of Petersburg, Novgorod, 

 Pskov, Courland, Livonia and Esthonia. The extent, namely, 277 thousand square 

 versts, or about 5,717 square geographical miles, is only one-quarter less than that 

 of the first region, but the number of inhabitants, about six millions, is but half as 

 great, because of the scant fertility of the soil. From the earliest times Novgorod and 



II* 



