272 TRANSACTIONS OF THE 



ging triumphantly eighteen tons over the quagmire I A result 

 which all the artillery horses in Her Majesty's service could not 

 hare effected !" 



[TJ. S. Gazette, Philadelphia, August 29, 1856.] 



Hon. Bronson Murray proposes to be one of a hundred to raise 

 |50,000 for a steam plow to do the work as cheap as it is now 

 done ! 



INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES OF RUSSIA. 



" The central table land of Russia, in Europe, forms what is 

 called the Industrial Zone. It may be considered as a level plain 

 running from east to west, from the Valdai mountains to the 

 Oural, bounded on the north by the southern frontier of the 

 second Industrial Zone. 



Here the soil is tolerably favorable to agriculture, and ordinary 

 cereals are cultivated. Rye is the chief product. Barley is not 

 raised for the consumption of the inhabitants. In the western 

 division of this zone tlax and hemp are abundant. Cattle are 

 reared, but are very inferior. Great care is taken of bees because 

 so much wax is used in the Russian churches. In the eastern 

 portion of this zone the gold and silver of the Oural mountains 

 are found, as also marblfe, many precious stones and salt. Peat 

 used as fuel in Moscow. 



The Agricultural Zone is bounded by the Industrial on the 

 north, and by the Steppes on the south. The richness of the soil 

 gives its name; it is a thick bed of black loam which covers the 

 whole district, imparting to it a wondrous fertility. It spreads 

 over 17,400 square miles — population nearly twenty millions. 

 Here are raised wheat, hemp, oil seeds, tobacco, hops, beets and 

 bees wax. A part of it is well wooded, and gives pitch, tar, and 

 pearl ashes, has factories of various kinds — makes soap, tallow, 

 candles, tans hides, and has salt petre and manufactures tobacco. 



The Pastoral Zone or Plain of the Steppes, is the southern one 

 of the Empire. Soil various — denominated according to the 

 facts — grassy, heathy, brushwood, sandy, chiefly devoted to breed- 

 ing horses, cattle and sheep. It has this immense importance — it 

 contains the mouths of all the great rivers flowing towards the 

 south. Odessa its principal port. 



