VJll I'lJEl'ACE. 



rultuvi' and Forestry have been advanced and im])roved until the 

 present day. To His Excellence, Mr. Vladimir Ivanovicli Ko- 

 \ alevsky. Director of the Department of Trade and Manufactures^ 

 Ministry of Finance. Privy Councillor, and President of the 

 lmi>erial Kussian Commission, World's Columbian Exposition, 

 is due the credit and honour of elaborating* the original idea of 

 the Imperial Minister of Finance Avitli reference to this work, 

 ;ind oi' drawing the entire plan^ of superintending it in all its 

 d(^tails. and of ably carrying it to completion. 



In this translation I have made an effort to follow a uniform 

 l>lan. and to harmonize, as far as limited time would permit, the 

 varying styles of treatment and of expression found in the orig- 

 inals of the many authors who have prepared the articles on 

 their several specialties. It has been my aim and endeavour to 

 modify and, as far as practicable, correct the English orthography 

 nl' many Russian names. To this end the compound consonants 

 of the Russian alphabet have been uniformly rendered into Eng- 

 lish, and as simply as possible; furthermore, all case and gender 

 endings have been dropped, especially of adjectives, as being ot 

 no value in Enghsli. For example, such adjectives as in the 

 Russian designate the genders in ckou, mafi, cuoe (skoi, skaia^ 

 skoie) have been shorn of their terminal vowels, and the reader 

 will find, in consequence, such expressions as Tamhovsk govern- 

 ment, instead of the varying forms found in other English 

 books, TamboffskoL Tamhoivsky, Tambovskoij, Tamhoffski govern- 

 nient. However, in the cases of old and very familiar Russian 

 words that have become stereotyped in English literature in false 

 dress, as Moscoiv for Moskva, Archangel for Arkhangelsk, Ekaterin- 

 burg for Yekaterinhiirg , they have been retained. Even that 

 impossible, and therefore unpardonable spelling, Nova Zemhla for 

 Xovaia Zemlia (New Land) will be found in this work in its 

 old but false orthography. By special request that numerous 

 class of words universally spelled in the United States with the 

 termination or, as also that class ending in er, are written in 



