XXVI INTRODUCTION. 



the contemporarx niininii' and niamit'aoturiug- importance of this region, and the extent 

 of its further industrial importance in the future, which is particularly favoured by 

 the fertility of the surface and the existence of numerous rivers, communicating with 

 the centre of Russia and with the export harbours. 



Wine making', silk growing and the raising of all kinds of fraits are here de- 

 veloped side by side with forestry, which is destined to moderate the extreme con- 

 trasts of climate in this southern steppe zone of Eussia in which woods now consti- 

 tute a great rarity. In a word, this is the region of the country which is destined 

 to show, with the Caucasus, the greatest industrial future, especially in consequence of 

 the nearness of the Black Sea. 



X. The South-western Region. 



This region comprises the governments of Podolia, (chief town Kamenets-Podolsk), 

 Volynia, (chief town, Zhitomir) and Kiev, (chief town, Kiev), and forms the natural 

 transition from the previous district, in particular Bessarabia and Kherson and from 

 the Austrian possessions of Galicia, on the one hand to Little Russia proper or the 

 Thirteenth Region, through the marshy parts of the forest region of Volynia to the 

 north-western districts of the Twelfth Region, and on the other hand to the Polish 

 governments of Russia. It contains the oldest of Russian towns, Kiev, which was the 

 first capital of ancient Russia. This region, with 145 thousand square versts, or 

 2.993 square geographical miles of surface, and more than 8 million inhabitants, and 

 distinguished by the floiunshing condition of its agriculture, has already begun its 

 mining and manufacturing activity, expressed both in the exploitation of many mine- 

 rals, such as brown coal or lignite, labrador, phosphate rocks, and iron ores, and by 

 the development of beet sugar manufactories, with its comparatively dense population, 

 may play its part in the coming development of Russia's industrial forces, to which 

 however tliere are obstacles in the absence of an abundant supply of mineral fuel of 

 its own and in the felling of the former extensive forests. 



XI. The Vistula or Polish Region. 



This region comprises the governments of the former kingdom of Poland, which 

 passed to Russia, and with an area of 112,000 square versts, or 2,312 square 

 geographical miles, has a population of about 9 million, being thus more thickly 

 inhabited than any other part whatever of Russia. The chief branch of the economical 

 activity of the inhabitants, as also of the whole Russian people, is agriculture and 

 the industries related thereto, such as beet sugar manufacture and distilling. But as 

 this region is rich in coal, as in the government of Petrokov, and has a denser popu- 

 lation than that of the other parts of Eussia, and in consequence of its proximity to 

 the industrially developed parts of Western Europe, namely Prussia and Austria, it 

 is more deeply imbued with the industrial spirit than the remaining districts of the 

 Empire; and since Russia in the latter decades began to foster, with the help of a 

 protective customs tariff the development of its internal industry, it has rapidly devel- 

 oped its raining and manufacturing activity. This movement was very strongly marked 

 in the rapid growth of the getting of coal (See Mining Industry), and the production 



