PART V. 



BALTIC PROVINCES OF RUSSIA. 



CHAPTER I. 

 FOREST LANDS. 



A POPULAK name by which the Pinus silvestris is more 

 extensively known than it is by the name of Scotch fir, 

 is the Riga pine ; but this latter designation is associated 

 with tall straight trunks, such as are fitted for being used 

 as masts and booms, while the former is associated with 

 what, compared with these, seem dwarfed shrub-like 

 trees unsuitable for such applications. 



It is from the place of export that it has received that 

 designation. Most of the timber exported thence, as has 

 been mentioned, is brought thither from the provinces 

 of Smolensk and Vitepsk, but some of it is the produce 

 of the Baltic provinces of Russia. These are generally 

 described as being three in number. 



Conterminous with the government of Kovno, in 

 Lithuania, situated between it and the Baltic, and the 

 Gulf of Riga, is Courland. To the east of this, separated 

 from it by the Dwina, lying between the north-western 

 boundary of Vitepsk and the Gulf of Riga, is Livonia ; 

 and to the north of this, between this and the Gulf of 

 Finland, is Estonia. 



Limited and compressed as Estonia or Est-land, the 

 land of the Ests, may now be, that tribe represents the 

 primitive people inhabiting the whole of this region 



