Peter Kropotkin and John Thomas Bealby

“ The soil is not very suitable for agriculture, and owing to a rather dense population, considerable numbers of the inhabitants find occupation in industry, or as carriers and carpenters for one-half of the year at the Black Sea ports. ”

“ Of the total area over 4,000,000 acres are owned by the peasant communities, nearly 3,000,000 acres by private owners and some 250,000 by the Crown. The principal crops are rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, and potatoes. Hemp is grown for local use and export. Bees are kept. The chief non-agricultural industries are distilleries, iron-works, factories for cloth, cottons, paper, matches, leather and china, flour-mills and oil works. Large quantities of wooden wares are fabricated in the villages of the south. ”

“ Cretaceous deposits occur in the S.W., and Devonian limestones and shales crop out in the S.E. The government is covered with a thick layer of boulder clay in the north, with vast ridges and fields of boulders brought during the Glacial Period from Finland and the government of Olonets; large areas in the middle are strewn with flint boulders and patches of loess are seen farther south. The mean annual temperature is 41° F. Iron ores are the chief mineral wealth, nearly 40,000 persons being engaged in mining. Beds of coal occur in several places, and some of them are worked. ”