The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

224 RUSSIA IN EUROPE.but the want of highways and the severity of the climate prevent the developmentof the mining industry- Even the fine granite, porphyry, and marble quarries areworked only where the stone can be shipped at once for the coast towns. Theiron business alone has acquired importance, although the furnaces are mainlysupplied with bog-iron ores, of which about 35,000 tons are annually raised. Inthe south a great many underground mines have been abandoned, and the mineralindustry is continually retiring farther north.Besides its metal works, Finland has several flourishing spinning and weavingfactories and paper-mills, the latter largely supplied, as in Sweden, with the rawmaterial from the forests. Ship-building is also actively carried on, especially onthe Gulf of Bothnia, and the mercantile navy of Finland is relatively one of thelargest in Europe. The shipping trade has nearly trebled during the last twelveyears, and to this must be added a large frontier traffic with Russia throughLake Ladoga and the Wiborg and St. Petersburg railway. Quantities of Germanwares are also smuggled across the border, and the old practice of " dumb trade "still survives in several places. The peasantry bringing their farm produce in thesteamers across Lake Ladoga for the St. Petersburg market leave it at certainpoints, ticketed with their names and the amount, returning at a fixed time forthe money, without a word being exchanged on either side.Railways.— Telegraphs. — Government.In the south a line of railway runs nearly parallel with the coast betweenWiborg and Hango, with branches to Ilelsingfors, Abo, and Tammerfors. Thesystem is to be extended north-west to Vasa, and thence to Uleaborg, under the sixtyfifthparallel, and the ground has even been partly surveyed for a projected line toTorne&, so that in a few years the Swedish and Finnish systems will probablymeet on the banks of the Tornest, near the arctic circle.All the coast towns are alsoconnected by regular steam service, while small steamboats and tugs, penetratingto the heart of the country through the twenty-eight locks of the Saima Canal,connect Wiborg with Kuopio, and even with Idensalmi, 240 miles in a straight linefrom the coast, and 300 including the windings. Compared with similar works inRussia, those of Finland are remarkable for their excellence and solidity. Acanal 300 miles long has recently been projected to connect the Gulf of Bothniawith the White Sea, by taking advantage of several rivers and the great Lake Top,the Top-ozero of the Russians. The highways are amongst the best in Europe.The postal and telegraph services are relatively far more developed than inRussia, as might be supposed from the generally higher standard of education.Yet the public schools are far from numerous, and in 1877 the primary schoolswere attended by no more than some 20,000 children—the 273 lyceums andsecondary schools by 4,250 only.Most of the children learn reading and singingat home, or in the ambulatory schools supported by the communes, and movingevery two or three months from hamlet to hamlet. But writing is much neglectedin these migrating institutions, and while nearly all the children can read, scarcely