MEANS OF TRANSPORT 95, 



people are available for forestry work. Work is usually 



paid by the piece. Wages are cheapest in the scantily 



populated areas in the north and east. For the 



initial transport of the felled material from the forest 



horses are generally used to convey it either to the 



river, railway station, or the nearest local market. 



The transport is done in winter, snow and frost being 



counted upon to give the otherwise impracticable roads 



a hard even surface and render them negotiable. 



Streams, rivers and canals are the most practical, as 



they are the most used of all communications for the 



transit of the forest produce to the distant markets, 



and Russia is well off in all of these. The rivers, of 



which we daily read so much in the newspapers, are 



put to a very different purpose in peace time. Then 



you may see great rafts of timber, floated many miles 



from the forests in which it was cut, proceeding silently 



down-stream to some distant market. The length of 



floatable water is thus estimated — 69,000 versts (a 



verst = about two- thirds of a mile) floatable, 83,000 



versts navigable for boats, and 50,000 versts navigable 



for steamers. It is estimated that European Russia 



possesses 25,000 versts of river exclusively reserved for 



the floating of large rafts of logs, etc., 1,500 used by 



the timber boats of wood merchants, 38,500 versts of 



double tow paths, together with 26,000 versts navigable 



by steamboats. There are only about 2,000 versts of 



canals. The most important river is the Volga, and 



tributaries connected by canals with the Neva and 



the Northern D wina ; then comes the Dnieper, Western 



Dwina, Niemen, and the Vistula. The period during 



which the rivers, which are free to all for this purpose, 



