CHAPTER VI. 
FORESTS OF OLONETZ, 
WiIsHING to learn a great deal more in regard to the 
general appearance of the forest lands in Northern Russia 
than could be obtained on such a holiday trip as I could 
myself undertake, I asked Professor Schavranoff, Direc- 
‘tor of the Laesnoi Corpus, or School of Forestry in the 
vicinity of St. Petersburg, how tbis could be accomplished. 
He at once supplied me with a narrative prepared by M. 
Judrae, a forest official of high position, of a tour of inspec- 
tion which was made by him in 1867. The following isa 
translation of part of his narrative of what he saw :— 
‘The first steamer of the season (1867) proceeding from 
St. Petersburg to Petrozavodsk, sailed on the 30th May 
(Old Style), having been prevented from sailing earlier by 
the ice on the Neva and Lake Ladoga. With fine, some- 
what warm weather, we left the capital, and a few hours’ 
hard steaming against the current brought us to Lake 
Ladoga; but scarcely had we got 30 versts (20 miles) 
from St, Petersburg when ice began to meet us, some of it 
in sheets of a very large size; and it was getting dark. 
The keen north-east wind made itself felt; and looking to 
the horizon there stretched out before us a sea of unbroken 
or of congealed fields of ice; the steamer, however, resolately 
advanced. I took refuge in the cabin from the intolerable 
cold, but after a few minutes I hastened on deck in con- 
sequence of the steamer being stopped. There was ice in 
immense shoals ahead of us, so that to go on in the course 
we were following would have risked damage to our paddle- 
wheels, whereby we should have been placed in an awkward 
