EXPORTS BY ARCHANGEL AND THE WHITE SEA. 131 



Rusanova, with its capabilities, will develop the resources 

 of this district. 



' Mr Rusanoff has two tug steamers and a number of 

 barges : the steam saw-mills are capable of cutting sixty 

 thousand trees, representing a quarter of a million of 

 planks, in a year. In addition to the church Mr Rusanoff 

 erected a schoolroom, an important store for provisions and 

 other necessaries, large house accommodation, and then 

 commenced his business. The trees, hewn in the primaeval 

 forests around, are lashed into rafts of perhaps two hundred 

 each, and floated down to the mouths of the rivers, where 

 the steamers go to take them in tow. Arrived at Rusanova, 

 they pass through the saw-mills, and are ready for ship- 

 ment abroad. Once commenced the operatioas soon began 

 to grow. In the first year several ships came for timber ; 

 last year sixteen came ; this year, the third, twenty-two 

 large ships and nine smaller vessels are to come ; next 

 year Mr Rusanoff's business engagements will require fifty 

 ships. 



' Three years ago the value of labour here was fifteen 

 kopecks, or fivepence a day ; now it is worth a rouble, or 

 two shillings and ninepence a day. The port is an excel- 

 lent one. At low tide there are nineteen feet of water in 

 the channel abreast of the quay, at high water from thirty- 

 eight to forty-four feet, according to the height of the tide. 

 There is no bar, and beyond Masslynnoi iSos, the pilot 

 station and beacon seven miles away, ; s the deep sea. Mr 

 RusanofF means to construct this winter a tall lighthouse 

 and life-boat station upon Masslynnoi Point, to replace the 

 beacon, and perfect the means of access to the port. The 

 approach of ships is signalled from the beacon, and the 

 steamers are always available for towing ships at a mode- 

 rate cost. The daylight during the open navigation is 

 practically constant, and the saw-mills and steamers work 

 night and day. The harbour was open last year consider- 

 ably earlier than Archangel, ships coming here when the 

 pther port was closed. The difficult and often tedious 

 'voyage down the White Sea, and the miserable approaches 



