77* 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Cossacks attend this favorite winter fishing. Not less than ten 

 thousand people participate in it; about a million and eighty 

 thousand pounds of sturgeon and the same amount of other fish 

 (sander and silurus) are caught and fifty-four thousand pounds of 

 caviare prepared. The average price for sturgeon is 13*8 cents a 

 pound, and for caviare about a dollar and a half a pound. 



In addition to the fisheries described above, the Ural Cossacks 

 carry on important fishing in the Caspian Sea in spring and also 

 in winter ; the methods not being of an unusual character, I omit 

 a description. 



The total amount of the local fishery business can be ex- 

 pressed in the following figures for 1891 : 5,817,464 pounds of 



Fig. 10. — Fall Fishing on the Ural River. Making Caviare. 



sturgeon, 73,960,824 pounds of other fish, 1,076,076 pounds fish roe, 

 173,348 pounds dried sturgeon steak (balik), and 6,084 pounds 

 isinglass were exported from the territory of the Ural Cossacks. 

 The total amount of fish landed must have been larger than these 

 figures, owing to the local consumption, though in comparison 

 with that exported it is quite insignificant. Thanks to the duty 

 for every pound of fish exported from the Ural Cossacks' land, local 

 fish trade statistics are excellent, and we are in possession of very 

 valuable figures, similar to the above, for more than half a cen- 

 tury, which gives an exact idea of the direction, increase, and 

 decrease of this important industry in a very large and definite 

 region.* 



* The diagram is to be seen in the Russian Department of the Fishery Building at the 

 World's Fair. 



