Nashville Daily Patriot

Resources of Russia.

The magnificent system of railways about to be commenced by the Russian government, naturally draws attention to the natural resources of the country which these new facilities of communication will assist to develope. The utility of the roads which Russia has planned on so vast a scale, requires no demonstration; but a clearer perception of their advantages may result from a few observations on the situation of the empire.

In Europe alone Russia possesses a territory of more than two millions of square miles in extent. It is easy to comprehend that great diversities of climate, of soil, and of population are found in the different provinces comprised in this immense surface. While in the province (or government as it is called,) of Archangel winter reigns the greater part of the year, in the southern part of the empire, under a sky as pure as that of Italy, nature, even in winter, is vivified by a genial sun.

If in the northern provinces, and even in those of the centre, the harvest, in the best years, only returns from twice to four times the seed, in the provinces of the south, where the soil is composed of a rich black mould, a good harvest is almost a calamity for the cultivators, because the prices of agricultural products descend to prices fabulously low, and the laborer sees his wheat, the fruit of his toil, rot on his hands for the want of a market.

It has frequently been said by writers or Russian subjects, that general averages, often so available in economical reasonings, teach nothing respecting the condition of that country. For example, the average population of European Russia is 62 inhabitants to a square mile; but the province of Archangel has only three, while that of Moscow has 2500 per square mile. How utterly devoid of instruction is the average when the details from which it is made up differ so widely. Take another example: There is annually extracted from the mines of Russia nearly a quarter of a million tons iron; but the province of Perm alone produces more than 60 per cent of this.

There exist in Russia immense natural deposits of salt, like lake Elton, for example, which alone is sufficient to supply the entire globe for centuries; and yet Russia imports from foreign countries her supply of salt for the northern and the Baltic provinces. The rich coal mines, those of the Don especially, are so distant from the manufacturing centres that industry does not profit by them; and in some parts of the empire the working of productive coal mines has been abandoned for want of a market. Examples could be multiplied to almost any extent, illustrating the advantages which that country will derive from the completion of her system of railways.

Manufacturing industry, which has naturally taken for its seat the most populous provinces—those of the centre—has to cross immense distances, as well to procure raw materials as to find a market for its products.

In view of such a state of things, it is easy to see that the Czar is pursuing a judicious policy in opening avenues of inter-communication between the various parts of his empire, which contains in its bosom all the desirable elements of prosperity. The war, as well as the example of other countries, has taught him his necessities; and it is not surprising that on the re-establishment of peace, his first care is to diminish the distance, so to speak, between the various classes of producers and consumers in his vast empire, and so stimulate production by the creation of markets. Today it is much easier to transport any article of consumption from America to England, than it is to send a sack of barley from Saratov to St. Petersburg.

The rivers of Russia, it is true, offer great conveniences for commerce. The plateau in the middle of the empire forms the centre of a vast hydrographic net-work. From it, as will be seen by a glance at the map, issue the Volga, the Don, the Dnieper, the two Dunas and a multitude of secondary streams that extend their ramifications in all directions, and run sufficiently near each other to render it easy to connect their waters. Thus merchandise passes regularly from the mouth of the Volga to that of the Neva, and from the Black Sea to the Baltic. But in spring inundations render navigation impossible; in summer the small rivers nearly dry up; and in winter they are locked up with ice.

This ice which some rather poetic writers have called a natural railroad, answers very well in a book or a picture; but it is none the less true that it completely arrests transportation. It is stated on good authority that commodities shipped from certain points in Russia are sometimes two years in reaching their destination. Add to this, that never, not even immediately after the breaking up of the ice, can large boats enter the small rivers or the canals, that the Western Duna and the Dnieper serve only for descent, and that all the rivers spread farther apart as they approach the circumference of the empire, leaving immense intervening plains over which wheels furnish the only means of transportation, and it will be evident that the great need of Russia is the system of railways she is projecting. If she is a great and formidable power in the present condition of her empire what will she be when the opening of new markets shall have touched the nerves of her industry, and diffused wealth and civilization throughout her borders?-