CHAP. V. CAPTAIN PERRY. 75 



Althoug] i flic Don and Volga canal was by this time 

 Imlf dug, and many of the requisite sluices were finished, 

 the Czar sent orders to Perry to let the works stand, 

 and attend upon him immediately at St. Petersburg!!. 

 Leaving one of his assistants to take charge of what 

 had been done, Perry waited upon his royal employer, 

 who had a great new design on foot of an altogether 

 different character. This was the formation of a royal 

 dockyard on one of the southern rivers of Russia, where 

 he contemplated building a fleet of war ships, where- 

 with to act against the Turks in the Black Sea. Perry 

 immediately entered upon the office to which he was 

 appointed, of Comptroller of Russian Maritime Works, 

 and proceeded to carry out the new project. The site 

 of the Royal Dockyard was fixed at Veronize on the 

 Don, and there Perry was occupied for several years, 

 with a vast number of workmen under him, in building 

 a dockyard, with storehouses, ship sheds, and workshops. 

 He also laid down and superintended the building of 

 numerous vessels, one of them of eighty guns ; and the 

 slips on which he built them are said to have been very 

 ingenious and well contrived. 



The creation of this dockyard was far advanced, when 

 Perry received a fresh command to appear before the 

 Czar at St. Petersburgh. Peter had now founded his 

 new capital there, and desired to connect it with the 

 Volga by means of a canal, to enable provisions, timber, 

 and building materials to flow freely to the city from 

 the interior of the empire. Perry forthwith entered 

 upon an extensive survey of the intervening country, 

 tracing to their respective heads the rivers flowing into 

 Lake Ladoga. He surveyed three routes, and recom- 

 mended for execution, as the most easy, that by the 

 river Svir from Lake Ladoga to Lake Onega, from thence 

 by the river Kovja to Lake Biela, then down into the 

 Volga by a cut from Bielozersk to Schneska. The fall 

 on the Petersburgh side of the navigation was 445 



