130 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



around groups of belfries, cupolas, and domes. Imagine 

 a vast green marsh along the bank of a broad brown river, 

 with, mounds of clay cropping here and there out of the 

 peat and bog ; put buildings on these mounds of clay ; 

 adorn the buildings with frescoes, crown them with cupolas 

 and crosses ; fill in the space between church and convent, 

 and convent and church, with piles and planks, so as to 

 make ground for gardens, streets, and yards ; cut two wide 

 'lanes from the church called " Smith's Wife," to the mon- 

 astery of St. Michael, three or four miles in length ; connect 

 these lanes and the stream by a dozen clearings ; paint the 

 walls of church and convent white, the domes green and 

 blue ; surround the log houses with open gardens ; stick a 

 geranium, a fuchsia, and an oleander into every window; 

 leave the grass growing everywhere in street and clearing 

 and you have Archangel.' 



In a work entitled, The Land of the North Wind ; or, 

 Travels among the Laplanders and the Samoyeds, by Edward 

 Rae, F.R.G.S., the following account is given of Rusanovna, 

 another port of export which he visited in 1874 : 



' Three years ago there was nothing whatever here but 

 a steep muddy bank, crowned with firs of the virgin forest. 

 Mr Rusanoff, a man of ability and initiative, coming here, 

 was struck by the advantages the spot possessed for the 

 establishment of a timber port. After long and patient 

 investigations in the district he took from the Russian 

 Government, I am informed, a concession of eight million 

 desatin of forest land lying on and about the great river 

 and its branches. This is equivalent to fourteen millions 

 of acres, which is considerable. The area of France, inclu- 

 sive of 'the two provinces temporarily occupied by the 

 Germans, is about two hundred thousand square miles, and 

 we should like to make a comparison ; but as neither my 

 companion nor I know how many acres there are in a 

 square mile, and don't mean to learn superficial measure- 

 ment until the metric system is introduced into our puzzle- 

 headed fossil old country, we must leave the question alone. 



