392 



RUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



the advantage of lying in a vast carboniferous basin, which increases in value in 

 proportion as the forests threaten to disappear. Of the 113 pits surveyed in this 

 basin, 4 were being worked in 1867, jdelding 25,000 tons yearly, though 

 300,000 might easily be extracted. The Tula beds have a mean thickness of 

 16 feet, rising in some places to 26 feet, and the coal generally lies in horizontal 

 strata near the surface. 



Between Tula and Moscow the chief railway station is Sfrjiuk/ior, with a large 

 river traffic, and some important tanneries and calico works. North of it is 

 Podolsk, already in the Moscow circuit. 



Moscow. 



The second capital of Russia, which takes the first position, if not in population, 

 trade, and industry, at least in point of precedence, occupies almost exactly the 



Fig. 206.— Tula. 

 Ôcale 1 : 210.000- 



E.ofP. 



55° 10 





T^^-.i.i-.o'. 





''^.'.s'l'-"-'^'^ 



57°50 



37°40' 



E.Q-TG. 



_ 3 Mil3s. 



geographical centre of the state. It stands on no large river, the Moskva being 

 navigable only for small boats ; but the slight undulations of the surrounding 

 plains offer no obstacles to its direct communications with the Volga, Oka, Don, 

 and Dnieper. It thus stands at a point where may easily converge all the main 

 routes from the extremities of the empire — the White and Black Seas, the Baltic 

 and Casj)ian, the ports of West Europe and of Siberia. The commercial and the 

 strategical interests of the country also required that all the main lines of railway 

 should here converge, for if Moscow lies open to attack from the direction of 



