30 TIMBER 



of Archangel and Vologda, comprising something like 

 190,000,000 acres, of which nearly half are in the province 

 of Archangel, the produce being shipped on the White Sea, 

 and owing to its excellent quality this timber holds a high 

 place in the market and commands a high price. About 

 65 per cent, of the timber shipped on the White Sea, and 

 recently at Petchora, is pine, 32 per cent, spruce, and 3 

 per cent, larch ; the latter timber is as yet little known, 

 but when timber merchants become better acquainted with 

 the excellent qualities of Siberian larch, it will doubtless, 

 like the local pine and spruce, find a ready sale. Pine and 

 spruce are found in about equal quantities in these pro- 

 vinces, and in the eastern portion and the Petchora valley 

 there are great quantities of larch. 



Red Fir (P. cembris), birch, poplar, and alder are also 

 found in considerable quantities, but not much of these 

 latter timbers has so far come into the foreign market. 

 Practically the whole of the White Sea trade is in sawn 

 goods. Out of a total of 158,000 St. Petersburg standards 

 shipped in 1906, 108,000 came to Great Britain. Archangel 

 is the chief port of shipment, doing three-fourths of the 

 trade. There are now twenty-five sawmills in Archangel, 

 employing over five thousand hands, whilst others are to be 

 found in Onega, Kem, Soroka, Keret and various other 

 places along the shores of the White Sea, and even at 

 Petchora and elsewhere well within the Arctic Circle. When 

 we consider the difficulties of transport, for roads are few 

 and bad and railways practically non-existent, and the long 

 distances, in some cases over 500 miles, which the timber 

 has to be brought down the rivers to the sawmills on the 

 coast, and the very short season, only four or five months 

 in the year, during which the trade can be carried on, one 

 cannot but admire the energy and resource of the Swedes 



