98 FORESTRY IN EASTERN RUSSIA. 



' Demidoff, availing himself of water-power wherever it 

 was procurable, soon very considerably extended his 

 operations, and before long, finding the Ural too circum- 

 scribed for his energy, and having exhausted all the pro- 

 ductive places thereabouts, he carried the works far into 

 Siberia, ceasing only at a point some two thousand versts 

 distant from Neviansk, where he first commenced his 

 work. 



' While Demidoff was thus closely employed in the 

 north, Botachoff was not less assiduous in prosecuting his 

 labours in the centre and south of Russia ; in fact, he had 

 one advantage which his fellow- workman, Demidoff, did 

 not possess viz,, that of procuring labour with greater 

 ease and cheapness. On the other hand, however, he had 

 to contend with an evil to which the latter was a stranger, 

 that is to say, the levying of black mail upon him and his 

 works by the robber chiefs of the Mouron woods, in proxi- 

 mity to which he had commenced his operations. Never- 

 theless, he covered every available spot with ironworks, 

 and it is said that the iron that he floated down the 

 Oka, at Nijni-Novgorod, was often exchanged for its 

 equivalent weight in copper money. In this last respect, 

 that of disposing of his manufactures, Botachoff possessed 

 an advantage denied to Demidoff, as the latter was only 

 able to convey his iron down the Kama and Volga once a 

 year, while the former continued his trafficking all the 

 year round. To the works established by Botachoff 

 Russia was first indebted for the manufacture of sheet 

 iron, which is at the present day, as it always has been, 

 quite the specialty of her productions. 



' At the establishment of this industry, in certain districts 

 in Russia a peculiar tenure of the works and lands, known 

 as ' possession right," was introduced ; and as it is some- 

 what unique in character, and has not been without its 

 effects on the development of the works, it may be well 

 briefly to describe it here. It is only right, however, to 

 state at the same time that the Government never fully 

 realised the hurtful and obstructive nature of the principle ; 



