XX INTRODUCTION. 



Pskov of old. and St. Petersburg, Eiga, Reval and the present Baltic provinces have 

 served as trade routes for communications with Western Europe. As a consequence 

 the spirit of enterprise has long been here developed, leading to the establishment 

 of many industrial undertakings, among which the manufacturing, chemical, metal 

 and wood indnsti'ies have acquired a most substantial position. But even now trade 

 and agriculture, the latter developed here and there in more intensive forms than in 

 any other parts of Russia, play in these regions an economic role incomparably 

 greater than manufacture. This circumstance is explained by the presence of water 

 ways of communication, alike connecting with the interior of the Empire, especially 

 by the Neva and the systems uniting Lake Ladoga and the Volga and with Western 

 Europe, St. -Petersburg as the capital and the key to these water ways, possesses 

 many manufactories and mills of every kind, but the surrounding country contains 

 but few of them, some parts of it, especially in the Novgorod government, are 

 sparsely populated and filled with forest swamps. 



In the Petersburg and Novgorod governments about 40 per cent of the surface 

 is still covered with forests; in Esthonia and Livonia, about 25 per cent; in the 

 remaining provinces, 30 per cent, so that there is here abundance of wood for fuel 

 and the latter is about 70 per cent cheaper there than in the Moscow region. Never- 

 theless there is brought hither principally from England, for the purposes of the works, 

 manufactories, steamers and steam engines, about 70,000,000 pouds or 1,200,000 tons 

 of coal annually, at a cost on the spot of 16 to 17 kopecks per poud. 



III. The Finland Region. 



The Grand Duchy forms a perfectly independent administrative region and is 

 also separated from the other parts of the Empire in an economical respect, even 

 possessing its own customs tariff. Its area, 328 thousand square versts, or 6,783 

 square geographical miles, is almost equal to that of the Moscow region, but the 

 number of its inhabitants, about two and one-half millions, is 20 per cent thereof, suf- 

 ficiently explaining the feeble development here of manufactories and mills. The prin- 

 cipal industries of the country consist in agriculture, cattle raising, the felling and 

 fashioning of timber, and the quarrying of stone. Cast iron and iron are obtained to 

 the amount of about one million pouds, while numerous but small and various manu- 

 factories and works produce goods to the value of some 40 million roubles yearly. 



The chief industries are spinning and weaving, wood, metals, butter and leather, 

 paper, papier-mache and pottery. The export of these goods into other parts of Russia 

 reached 13 million roubles in 1890, while the import to Finland, principally grain, 

 reaches 17 million roubles in the same year. Finland's foreign trade consists princi- 

 pally of timber and butter. The quantity of forest, some 42 per cent of the surface 

 of the country, combined with the scanty population, makes it possible for Finland to 

 develop her industry on a basis of wood fuel. 



IV. The Northern Region of European Russia. 



This comprises the governments of Olonets, Archangel and Vologda, limited on 

 the north by the Arctic ocean, and bordered on the south by the Moscow and Baltic 



