FOREST INDUSTRIES. 139 



resuming this industry. Tar is manufactured extensively 

 in the Government of Archangel. The operation is of the 

 simplest character. 



Spirits of turpentine are also manufactured there, and 

 this may also be reckoned among the small industries 

 of the peasants living in forest districts. The following 

 account of how this was done sixty years ago may be con- 

 sidered antiquated, but amongst a population such as they 

 are changes in rural industries are not frequent, or speedily 

 and extensively effected. It is extracted from a paper 

 published in the Transactions of the Highland Society of 

 Scotland for 1820, entitled ' An Account of the Manufac- 

 ture of Turpentine from the Vinus Sylvestris, as practised 

 by the Native Peasantry of the Interior of the -Russian 

 Empire.' By William Howison, M.D. , 



< The second day after my arrival,' writes Dr Howison, 

 ' I made an excursion in the neighbourhood of the mansion- 

 house, during the course of which 1 arrived at a wretched 

 building, situated upon the margin of the forest, at the 

 door of which two Russian boors were busily employed 

 with their hatchets in cutting into small chips the stumps 

 and dried roots of fir trees, which had been previously dug 

 from the earth, and were lying collected together upon the 

 surface of the snow. Upon going into the interior of the 

 wooden shed or building, there was a fine clear fire burning, 

 and two old boors distilling turpentine from the chips of fir 

 wood broken down, as already noticed, by their companions. 

 In the centre of the apartment there was a brick furnace, 

 with a clear fire burning in it, and a large iron boiler built 

 in above it. The boiler was completely filled with the cut 

 chips of wood, and a quantity of water j the flame of the 

 fire reverberating upon its under surface. From the top 

 of the boiler, which was accurately and neatly covered up 

 with a close lid, a spiral iron tube passed out, and entered 

 a large wooden vessel placed within a short distance from 

 it, which originally had been completely filled with snow 

 and ice, but which, by this time, were almost entirely con- 



