DEPRESSED CONDITION OF WORKS. Ill 



They are expecting the new " mining railway " to bring 

 up coal from Perm. But it remains to be seen whether 

 it will benefit any but the works of DemidofY and 

 Stroganoff, through which it runs, as it will never do to 

 convey coal over those mountainous bad roads by carts 

 and horses such as they have, 25 poods being a load. 



' That was not the railway which the merchants and 

 inhabitants of the Ural and Siberia wanted. They want 

 to join the two great arteries of European and Asiatic 

 Kussia, the Kama and the Tobol, expecting that this will 

 expand the Siberian trade. But even that will never pay 

 at present, as there are only some 300,000 passengers 

 passing over the Ural mountains in the year, and about 

 8,000,000 poods of merchandise.' 



The failure of mining operations here to prove per- 

 manently remunerative is largely attributable to the 

 failure of the supply of wood required in smelting, in 

 melting, and heating the metal, and in the production of 

 motive power in the absence of such power attained from 

 the fall of water. 



In regard to the motive power which is thus produced 

 my correspondent writes : 



' Now you must know when I was in that remote dis- 

 trict any new enterprise the erection of any new mill, 

 manufactory, or establishment of any kind requiring steam 

 power was strictly prohibited by an old law, they say 

 solely to prevent the exhaustion of the Government 

 forests. 



' Private landowners are also interdicted by authority 

 from felling and selling timber of their estates. It can 

 only be consumed in their own zavods for building, heat- 

 ing, and smelting purposes. The people belonging to and 

 living on the works have their own woods told off for 

 their separate use by right, and under the care and 

 management, of the Commune. 



' As a proof of this, there was a large stearine and soap 

 manufactory erected near Ekaterineburg, at the cost of I 



