Production of Isinglass on the Coasts of India. 85 



Russia. Those of the Volga are particularly productive, and consist 

 of the Carp, the Pike, the Trout, the Herring, and of the Pilchard ; 

 but to a still greater extent of the Sturgeon, Beluga, and Salmon, 

 besides of the Lampreys and Mackerel in the Crimea for pick- 

 ling. 



M. Schnitzler says, that the Sturgeon fishery is of considerable 

 value : 1,850,500 caught in the year 1793, in the Volga, near 

 Astrakhan, yielded 124,970 poods of caviare and 3,375 poods of 

 Isinglass. The net value of the Russian fisheries is calculated by 

 him to amount to more than 10,000,000 rubles. 



The following statement of the produce of the Russian fisheries of 

 the Caspian and its tributary streams, in 1828 and 1829, is extracted 

 from the official Report made to the Minister of Commerce at 

 St. Petersburgh. 



Year. 



1828 

 1829 



Number 

 of Per- 

 sons em- 

 ployed 

 in fish- 

 ing. 



8760 



Stur- 

 geon. 



43,035 

 68,325 



>evruga. 



653,164 

 697,716 



Beluga. 



23,069 

 20,391 



Caviare. 



Poods, lb. 

 34.860 1 

 2^420 7 



Fish Car- 

 tilage. 



Isinglass. 



Poods, lb. Poods.lb. 

 1,207 384,225 27 

 1,173 26§ 1,092 22 



Pallas, in his Travels in the Southern Provinces of the Russian 

 Empire, states that the emoluments of the fisheries in the Volga and 

 the not less productive shores of the Caspian Sea, may be considered 

 as the principal support of the inhabitants of Astrakhan. It would 

 be difficult to find in the whole world, except on the banks of 

 Newfoundland, a more productive fishery, or one more advantageous 

 to the government, than those on the Volga and the Caspian 

 Sea united. During the fasts of the Greek church and the weekly 

 fast days, which together amount to at least one-third of the year, 

 this fishery affords the principal food to the whole European part 

 of Russia, and its populous capitals. Many thousands of indi- 



The other species figured in the same work are Acipenser brevirostris. tab. i. 

 fig. 2. A. Schypa, tab. i. fig. 3, and Suppl. tab. i. fig. 2. A. Ratzeburgii, tab. i. 

 fig. 3. A. Lichtensteinii, tab. ii. fig. 1. With A. Maculosus and Oxyrhynchus of 

 North America described, but not figured. 



