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other natural conditions made agriculture entirely subsidiary,save along the upper courses of the Dvina rivers.The lure that beckoned the adventurer groups and thenthe Novgorod bands, organized by rich merchantlandownersand led by tough, experienced boatmenpioneers,was above all fur—sable, marten, fox; betterand more numerous the farther north and east the' companies' pressed; beaver, squirrel, otter, of muchless monetary worth, but invaluable for ordinary use (stillcommon right down to the seventeenth century all overRussia, north of the true steppes). Fishing, sealing, andwhaling in 'the blue sea-ocean' drew men to stud thecoast with little settlements, sending back to far-awayNovgorod walrus ivory, seal skins (admirable for thestrongest ropes and thongs), and blubber oil. These and,above all, fur, tar, pitch, and potash formed the staplesof Novgorod's exports through the Hanse merchants tothe western lands.Along the White Sea shores and elsewhere salt made anew frontier. From the fifteenth century the industryexpanded greatly, and there was a large export to thesouth. Thanks largely to salt two famous rival monasteries,Solovetsky (founded 1436) and Byelozero (founded1397; see map 3), developed into semi-governmentalcentres of industry and of defence against the Swedes,while in the north-east towards the Urals the Stroganovfamily emerged as the chief salt monopolists two generationsand more before their 'conquest of Siberia' (1581).These economic characteristics of the frontier in theNorth explain why so large a part of its colonization wasdue to the wealthy Novgorod landowners and merchants,and later to the larger monasteries, who alone couldsupply the outlay and organization required. But therewere other trickles of colonization into the Vologda andVyatka regions, in part due to free migration, in part tosettlements made by appanage princes from the Volga,in part to the constant monastic outflow to the North inthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (see pp. 182-183).Here Novgorod and the rising power 01 Moscow clashed,and here there developed semi-independent communitieswhich were prepared on occasion to defy both alike. Ivan27