The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

MINING AND MANUFACTURES.4G5a more frequent survey, besides which each village has its own customs andspecial development. Even in the same district some communes will redistributethe land yearly, while in others the term varies from two years to a wholegeneration.* As a rule, the richer and more prosperous the commune, the lessfrequent are the redistributions.In order to insure equality there is usually a threefold classification of theland according to the quality of its soil, its aspect, inclination, proximity todwellings, roads, or streams,and even then the parcels are awarded by lot.Mining and Manufactures.Mining operations, formerly so important, and at no epoch completely abandoned,have acquired great development in the present century. A gildedpyramid at the St. Petersburg Exhibition of 1870, representing the quantity ofgold extracted from the Urals, mainly since 1816, weighed 1,610,000 lbs., and wasvalued at £102,000,000. The minerals, including, besides gold and platinum, iron,malachite, and precious stones, are confined chiefly to both slopes of the Urals,while the most copious naphtha springs occur at the two extremities of the Caucasus,and argentiferous lead ores and coal in the Altai and Transbaikal regions ofCentral Asia. Of all these treasures the most important are iron, coal, and salt,which exist in almost inexhaustible quantities, though still comparatively littleutilised. Russia still imports most of her coal from England, and much of hersalt from Galicia.The chief manufactures do not employ raw materials of home production, andare still unable to compete with those of the West in quantity or quality. Cottonspinning and weaving, although representing one-third of all manufactured goods,occupy the fifth place only after Great Britain, the United States, France, andGermany, and are centred chiefly in the Moscow, Vladimir, Kostroma, andSt. Petersburg districts. Wool, the next in importance, has its chief centre alsoin the Upper Volga and Oka basins, though Poland, Livonia, Grodno, Chernigov,Little Russia, the Don and Middle Volga basins, are also engaged in this industry,which employs over 100,000 hands altogether. Cotton and wool have thusreplaced the old national linen industry, which stood first till 1830, and formerlyexported largely to the West, and even to America. The raw material (flax andhemp) is now mostly exported, although the local demand for linens is still largelysupplied from the looms of the Upper Volga, Kostroma, Yaroslav, and Vladimir.Leather has always been one of the chief Russian industries, and the birchbark employed by the Russian tanners has the advantage of imparting to theirwares a much-prized odour. Yet, although the local supply of hides and skinsexceeds that of other European countries, the quantity of the manufactured articleis less. Most of the tanneries are small, numbering in 1872 nearly 13,000, andproducing over 10,000,000 dressed skins. A greater impulse has been given to* In the government of Saratov 128 villages redistribute annually, 22 every 2, 13 every 3, 21 every5, 20 every 6, 2 every 8, 32 every 10 years ; in 32 there has been no division since 1858 ;in 23 none since1862 ; and in one division has been theoretically abolished.