rKEFACE. 



ooinmercial activity began. With this fact in full view, and stim- 

 ulated hy the desire to a'ive the visitors to the Workl's Colum- 

 hian Exposition a more correct and fuller representation of the 

 contemporary state of the trade and industry of Russia. His 

 Kxcellence. Mr. S. ,1. Yitte. Imperial Minister of Finance, at the 

 close of the past year, instructed the Department of Trade and 

 Manufactures to make a general review of the principal branches 

 of the most developed industries of Russia, and of the internal 

 and foreign trade, as well as of the customs policy. 



To accomplish this very difficult task in the brief time al- 

 lotted. th«' Department of Trade and Manufactures invited spec- 

 ialists in the several conmiercial and industrial departments to 

 assist in the preparation of such a review, having entrusted the 

 editing of the work in the Russian language to the worthy Pro- 

 fessor of the St. Petersburg University, D. I. Mendeleeflf, whose 

 literary services are Avell known in the Old and in the New^ World. 



The translation of this work into English w^as fraught at the 

 beizinninir with very great difficulties, as there were no transla- 

 tors at hand who knew^ English and Russian sufficiently well 

 and w1k> were at the same time thoroughly acquainted with the 

 technical terms of the several industries under consideration. 

 Furthermore, skill and experience in writing wx^re requisite to 

 think out and select the proper expressions correctly to represent 

 in Endish the many idiomatic and technical meanings of the 

 several Russian authors. All these difficulties, how^ever, were 

 lia]»pily overcome through the kindness of the Consul-Genera 1 

 of the United States, 3Ir. J. 'SI. Crawford, who consented to 

 supervise and edit the entire series of volumes on The Industries 

 of Biissia. embracing more than 1600 large octavo pages. Still 

 further, is gratitude due to the Consul-General that he wiUingly 

 undertook this very difficult task knowing that the time neces- 

 sary for its accomplishment was exceedingly short. Nevertheless, 

 the end has been attained, thanks to the fact that Mr. Crawford ' 

 is thoroughly familiar with the Russian language and is also, 



