compose the forests, the soil of which is dry, and the extension of which is interrupted by green prairies. Viewed from a rising ground, the landscape presents a pleasing variety of corn-field and forest, while the horizon is broken by the bell-towers of numerous villages along the banks of the streams.

Viewed as a whole, the flora of the forest region must be regarded as European-Siberian; and, though certain species disappear towards the east, while new ones make their appearance, it maintains, on the whole, the same characters throughout from Poland to Kamchatka. Thus the beech (Fagus sylvatica), a characteristic tree of western Europe, is unable to face the continental climate of Russia, and does not penetrate beyond Poland and the southwestern provinces, reappearing again in the Crimea. The silver fir (pichta) does not extend over Russia, and the oak does not cross the Urals. On the other hand, several Asiatic species (Siberian pine, larch, cedar) grow freely in the north-east, while several shrubs and herbaceous plants, originally from the Asiatic steppes, have spread into the south-east. But all these do not greatly alter the general characters of the vegetation. The coniferous forests of the north contain, besides conifers, the birch (Betula alba, B. pubescens, B. fruticosa, and B. verrucosa, which extend from the Petchora to the Caucasus), the aspen, two species of alder, the mountain-ash (Sorbus aucuparia), the wild cherry-tree, and three species of willow. South of 62-64° north latitude appears the lime-tree, which multiplies rapidly and, notwithstanding the rapidity with which it is being exterminated, constitutes entire forests in the east (central Volga, Ufa). Farther south the ash (Fraxinus excelsior) and the oak make their appearance, the latter (Quercus pedunculata) reaching in isolated groups and trees as far as to St Petersburg and South Finland (Q. Robur appears only in the south-west). The hornbeam is prevalent in the Ukraine, and the maple begins to appear in the south part of the coniferous region. In the forest region no fewer than 772 flowering species are found, of which 568 dicotyledons occur in the Archangel government (only 436 to the east of the White Sea, which is a botanical limit for many species). In central Russia the species become still more numerous, and, though the local floras cannot yet be considered complete, they number from 850 to 1050 species in the separate governments, and about 1600 in the best explored parts of the south-west. Corn is cultivated throughout this region. Its northern limits-which are sure to advance still farther as the population increases-almost reach the Arctic coast at the Varanger Fiord; farther east they hardly extend to the north of Archangel, and the limit is still lower towards the Urals. The northern frontier of rye closely corresponds to that of barley. Wheat is cultivated in South Finland, but in western Russia it hardly passes 58° N, lat. Its true domains are the oak region and the Steppes. Fruit-trees are cultivated as far as 62° N. in Finland, and as far as 58° in the east. Apricots and walnuts flourish at Warsaw, but in Russia they do not extend beyond 50°. Apples, pears, and cherries are grown throughout the oak region.

The Region of the Steppes, which covers all southern Russia, may be subdivided into two zones-an intermediate zone and that of the Steppes proper. The Ante-Steppe of the preceding region and the intermediate zone of the Steppes include those tracts where the West-European climate struggles with the Asiatic, and where a struggle is being carried on between the forest and the Steppe. It is comprised between the summer isotherms of 59° and 63°, being bounded on the south by a line which runs through Ekaterinoslaff and Lugaň. South of this line begin the Steppes proper, which extend to the sea and penetrate to the foot of Mount Caucasus.

The Steppes proper are very fertile elevated plains, slightly undulated, and intersected by numerous ravines which are dry in summer. The undulations are scarcely apparent to the eye as it takes in a wide prospect under a blazing sun and with a deep-blue sky overhead. Not a tree is to be seen, the few woods and thickets being hidden in the depressions and deep valleys of the rivers. On the thick sheet of black earth by which the Steppe is covered a luxuriant vegetation develops in spring; after the old grass has heen burned a bright green covers immense stretches, but this rapidly disappears under the burning rays of the sun and the hot easterly winds. The colouring of the Steppe changes as if by magic, and only the silvery plumes of the kovyl (Stipa pennata) wave under_the_wind, giving the Steppe the aspect of a bright yellow sea. For days together the traveller sees no other vegetation; even this, however, disappears as he nears the regions recently left dry from the Caspian, where salted clays covered with a few Salsolaces, or mere sands, take the place of the black-earth. Here begins the Aral-Caspian desert. The Steppe, however, is not so devoid of trees as at first sight appears. Innumerable clusters of wild cherries (Prunus Chamacerasus), wild apricots (Amygdalus nana), tchilizhnik (Caragana frutescens), and other deep-root ad shrubs grow in the depressions of the surface and on the slopes of the ravines, giving the Steppe that charm which manifests itself in the popular poetry. Unfortunately the spread of cultivation is fatal to these oases (they are often called "islands" by the inhabitants); the axe and the plough ruthlessly destroy them.

The vegetation of the poimy and zaimischas in the marshy bottoms of the ravines, and in the valleys of streams and rivers, is totally different. The moist soil gives free development to thickets of various willows (Salicines), bordered with dense walls of wormwood and needle-bearing Composita, and interspersed with rich but not extensive prairies harbouring a great variety of herbaceous plants; while in the deltas of the Black Ser. rivers impenetrable masses of rush (Arundo Phragmites) shelter a forest fauna. But cultivation rapidly changes. the physiognomy of the Steppe. The prairies are superseded by wheat-fields, and flocks of sheep destroy the true steppe-grass (Stipa pennata), which retires farther cast. A great many species unknown in the forest region make their appearance in the Steppes. The Scotch pine still covers sandy. spaces, and maple (Acer tatarica and A. campestre), the hornbeam, and the white and black poplar become quite common. The number of species of herbaceous plants rapidly increases, while beyond the Volga a variety of Asiatic species join the West-European flora. Tho Circum-Mediterranean Region is represented by a narrow strip of land on the south coast of the Crimea, where a climate similar to that of the Mediterranean coast has permitted the development of a flora closely resembling that of the valley of the Arno. Of course, human cultivation has not yet acclimatized there the same variety of plants as that imported into Italy since the Romans. It has even destroyed the rich forests which sixty years ago made deer-hunting possible at Khersones. The olive and the chestnut are rare; but the beach reappears, and the Pinus Pinaster recalls the Italian pines. At a few points, such as the Nikitsky garden and Alupka, where plants have been accli. matized by human agency, the Californian Wellingtonia, the Lebanon cedar, many evergreen trees, the laurel, the cypress, and even the Anatolian palm (Chamaerops excelsa) flourish. The grass vegetation is very rich, and, according to lists still incom plete, no fewer than 1654 flowering plants are known. On the whole, the Crimean flora has little in common with that of the Caucasus, where only 244 Crimean species have as yet been found.1 The fauna of European Russia does not very materially differ Fatna from that of western Europe. In the forests not many animals which have disappeared from western Europe have held their ground; while in the Urals only a few-now Siberian, but formerly also European-are met with. On the whole, Russia belongs to the same zoo-geographical region as central Europe and northern Asia, the same fauna extending in Siberia as far as the Yenisei and Lena. In south-eastern Russia, however, towards the Caspian, we find a notable admixture of Asiatic species, the deserts of that part of Russia belonging in reality rather to the Aral-Caspian depression than to Europe.

For the zoo-geographer only three separate sub-regions appear on the East-European plains-the tundras, including the Arctic islands, the forest region, especially the coniferous part of it, and the Ante-Steppe and Steppes of the black-earth region. The Ural mountains might be distinguished as a fourth sub-region, while the south coast of the Crimea and Caucasus, as well as the Caspian deserts, have their own individuality.

As for the adjoining seas, the fauna of the Arctic Ocean off the Norwegian coast corresponds, in its western parts at least, to that of the North Atlantic Gulf Stream. The White Sea and the Arctic Occan to the east of Svyatoi Nos belong to a separate zoological region connected with, and hardly separable from, that part of the Arctic Ocean which extends along the Siberian coast as far as to about the Lena. The Black Sea, of which the fauna was formerly little known but now appears to be very rich, belongs to the Mediterranean region, slightly modified, while the Caspian partakes of the characteristic fauna inhabiting the lakes and seas of the AralCaspian depression.

In the region of the tundras life has to contend with such unfavourable conditions that it cannot be abundant. Still, the reindeer frequents it for its lichens, and on the drier slopes of the moraine deposits four species of lemming, hunted by the Canis lagopus, find quarters. Two species of the white partridge (Lagopus albus, L. alpinus), the lark, one Plectrophanes, two or three species of Sylvia, one Phylloscopus, and the Motacilla must be added. Numberless aquatic birds, however, visit it for breeding purposes. Ducks, divers, geese, gulls, all the Russian species of snipes and sandpipers (Limicula, Tringa), &c., cover the marshes of the tundras, or the crags of the Lapland coast.

The forest region, and especially its coniferous portion, though it has lost some of its representatives within historic times, is still rich. The reindeer, rapidly disappearing, is now met with only in Olonetz and Vologda; the Cervus pygargus is found everywhere, and reaches Novgorod. The weasel, the fox, and the hare are exceed

1 Bibliography.-Beketoff, Appendix to Russian translation of Griesebach and Reclus's Geogr. Univ.; Ledebour, Flora Rossica; Trautvetter, Rossin Arcticm Plantæ, 1880; Id., Flora Rossica Fontes; for flora of the tundras, Beketoff's "Flora of Archangel," in Mem. Soc. Natur. at St Petersburg university, xv., 1884; Regel, Flora Rossica, 1884; floras of separate governments in several scientific periodicals; Brown, Forestry in the Mining Districts of the Urals, 1885; Reports

by Commissioners of Woods and Forests in Russia, 1884; Forestry Almanac

(Lyesnoi Kalendar) for 1885,

ingly common, as also the wolf and the bear in the north; but
the glutton (Gulo borealis), the lynx, and even the elk (C. alces)
are rapidly disappearing. The wild boar is confined to the basin
of the Duna, and the Bison europea to the Bielovyezha forests.
The sable has quite disappeared, being found only on the Urals;
the beaver is found at a few places in Minsk, and the otter
is very rare. On the other hand, the hare (roussak), and also the
grey partridge (Perdix cinerea), the hedgehog, the quail, the lark,
the rook (Trypanocorax frugilega), and the stork find their way
into the coniferous region as the forests are cleared (Bogdanoff).
The avifauna of this region is very rich; it includes all the forest
and garden birds which are known in western Europe, as well as
a very great variety of aquatic birds. A list, still incomplete, of
the birds of St Petersburg shows 251 species. Hunting and shoot-
ing give occupation to a great number of persons. The reptiles
are few.
As for fishes, all those of western Europe, except the
carp, are met with in the lakes and rivers in immense quantities,
the characteristic feature of the region being its wealth in Corcgoni
and in Salmonidæ generally.

In the Ante-Steppe the forest species proper, such as Pteromys
volans and Tamias striatus, disappear, but the common squirrel
(Sciurus vulgaris), the weasel, and the bear are still met with
in the forests. The hare is increasing rapidly, as well as the fox.
The avifauna, of course, becomes poorer; nevertheless the woods
of the Steppe, and still more the forests of the Ante-Steppe,
give refuge to many birds, even to the hazel-hen (Tetrao bonasia),
the woodcock, and the black grouse (Tetrao tetrix, T. urogallus).
The fauna of the thickets at the bottom of the river valleys is
decidedly rich, and includes aquatic birds. The destruction of
the forests and the advance of wheat into the prairies are rapidly
impoverishing the Steppe fauna. The various species of rapacious
animals are disappearing, together with the colonies of marmots;
the insectivores are also becoming scarce in consequence of the
destruction of insects, while vermin, such as the suslik (Spermo-
philus, see MARMOT), become a real plague, as also the destructive
insects which have been a scourge to agriculture during recent
years. The absence of Coregoni is a characteristic feature of the❘
fish-fauna of the Steppes; the carp, on the contrary, reappears,
and the rivers are rich in sturgeons (Acipenserides). On the Volga
below Nijni Novgorod the sturgeon (Acipenser ruthenus), and
others of the same family, as also a very great variety of ganoids
and Teleostei, appear in such quantities that they give occupation
to nearly 100,000 people. The mouths of the Caspian rivers are
especially celebrated for their wealth of fish.2

Ethno- Prehistoric anthropology is a science of very recent growth in graphy. Russia; and, notwithstanding the energy displayed within that field during the last twenty years, the task of reconstructing the carly history of man on the plains of eastern Europe is daily becoming more complicated as new data are brought to light. Remains of Paleolithic man, contemporary with the large Quaternary mammals, are few in Russia; they are known only in Poland, Poltava, and Voronezh, and perhaps also on the Oka. Those of the later portions of the Lacustrine period, on the contrary, are so numerous that scarcely one old lacustrine basin in the regions of the Oka, the Kama, the Dnieper, not to speak of the lake-region itself, and even the White Sea coasts, can be mentioned where remains of Neolithic man have not been discovered, showing an unexpected variety of minor anthropological features, even at that remote period. The Russian plains have been, however, the scene of so many migrations of various races of mankind, the dwelling-places of prehistoric man and the routes followed during his migrations were so clearly indicated by natural conditions, and so often reoccupied, or again covered by new waves of colonization and migration, that at many places a series of deposits belonging to widely distant epochs are found superposed. Settlements belonging to the Stone age, and manufactories of stone implements, burial grounds (kostishchas) of the Bronze epoch, earthen forts (gorodishchas), and

1 The Year 1881 with regard to Agriculture, St Petersburg, 1885, gives nearly complete lists of them.

2 Bibliography.-There being no general recent work published on the fauna of Russia, beyond a valuable sketch (for the general reader) by M. Bogdanoff in the Appendix to the Russian translation of Reclus's Géogr. Univ., v., the classical work of Pallus, Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica, and the works dealing with different departments of the fauna in different parts of Russia, must be resorted to. These include the following:-Syevertsoff, for the birds of south-castern Russia; Bogdanoff, Birds and Mammals of the Black-Earth Region of the Volga Basin; Karolin for the southern Urals; Kessler for fishes; Strauch, Die Schlangen des Russ. R., for reptiles generally; Rodoszkowski and the publications of the Entomological Society generally for insects; Czerniavsky for the marine fauna of the Black Sea; Kessler for that of Lakes Onega and Ladoga; Grimm for the Casplan; and the publications of the scientific societies for a very great number of monographs dealing with departments of the fauna of separate governments, scas, and lakes. The fauna of the Baltic provinces is described in full in the Memoirs of the scientific bodies of these provinces. Middendorff's Sibirische Reise, vol. iv., Zoology, though dealing more especially with Siberia, is an invaluable source of information for the Russian fauna generally. Vega-expeditionens Vetenskapliga Jakttagelser may be consulted for the mammals of the tundra region and marine fauna. For more detailed bibliographical information sco Aperçu des travaux zoo-géographiques, published at St Petersburg in connexion with the Exhibition of 1878; and the index Ukazatel Russkot Literatury for natural science, mathematics, and medicine, published since 1872 by the Society of the Kieff university.

grave mounds (kurgans)-of which last four different types are known, the earliest belonging to the Bronze period-are superposed upon and obliterate one another, so that a long series of researches is necessary in order that sound generalizations may be reached. Two different races-a brachycephalic and a dolichocephalic-can be distinguished among the remains of the earlier Stone period (Lacustrine period) as having inhabited the plains of eastern Europe. But they are separated by so many generations from the earliest historic times that sure conclusions regarding them are in possible; at all events, as yet Russian archeologists are not agreed as to whether the ancestors of the Slavonians were Sarmatians only or Scythians also (Samokvasoff, Lemière), whose skulls have nothing in common with those of the Mongolian race. The earliest points that can, comparatively speaking, be regarded as settled must thus be taken from the 1st century, when the Northern Finns migrated from the North Dwina region towards the west, and the Sarmatians were compelled to leave the region of the Don, and to cross the Russian steppes from east to west, under the pressure of the Aorzes (the Mordvinian Erzya ?) and Siraks, who in their turn were soon followed by the Huns and the Ugur-Turkish stem of Avars.

It appears certain, moreover, that in the 7th century southern Russia was occupied by the empire of the KHAZARS (q.v.), who drove the Bulgarians, descendants of the Huns, from the Don, one section of them migrating up the Volga to found there the Bulgarian empire, and the remainder migrating towards the Danube. This migration compelled the Northern Finns to advance farther west, and a mixture of Tavasts and Karelians penetrated to the south of the Gulf of Finland.

Finally, it is certain that as early as the 8th century, and probably still earlier, a stream of Slavonian colonization, advancing castward from the Danube, was thrown on the plains of southwestern Russia. It is also most probable that another similar stream-the northern, coming from the Elbe, through the basin of the Vistula-ought to be distinguished. In the 9th century the Slavonians already occupied the Upper Vistula, the southern part of the lake region, and the central plateau in its western parts. They had Lithuanians to the west; various Finnish stems, mixed towards the south-east with Turkish stems (the present Bashkirs); the Bulgars, whose origin still remains doubtful, on the middle Volga and Kama; and to the south-east the Turkish-Mongolian world of the Petchenegs, Potovtsi, Uzes, &c. ; while in the south, along the Black Sea, extended the empire of the Khazars, who kept under their rule several Slavonian stems, and perhaps also some of Finnish origin. In the 9th century also the Ugrians are supposed to have left their Ural abodes and to have crossed south-eastern and southern Russia on their way to the basin of the Danube.

If these numerous migrations on the plains of Russia be taken into account, and if we add to them the Mongolian invasion, the migration of South Slavonians towards the Oka, the North Slavonian colonization extending north-east towards thie Urals and thence to Siberia, the slow advance of Slavonians into Finnish territory on the Volga, and at a later period their advance into the prairies on the Black Sea, driving back the Turkish stems which occupied them,-if we consider the manifold mutual influences of these three races on one another, we shall be able to form a faint idea of the present population of European Russia.

If the Slavonians be subdivided into three branches-the western (Poles, Czechs, and Wends), the southern (Serbs, Bulgarians, Croatians, &c.), and the eastern (Great, Little, and White Russians), it will be seen that, with the exception of some 3,000,000 Ukrainians or Little Russians, in East Galicia and in Poland, and a few on the south slope of the Carpathians, the whole of the East Slavonians occupy, as a compact body, western, central, and southerr. Russia.

Like other races of mankind, the Russian race is not a pure one. The Russians have taken in and assimilated in the course of their history a variety of Finnish and Turco-Finnish elements. Still, craniological researches show that, notwithstanding this fact, the Slavonian type has maintained itself with remarkable persistencySlavonian skulls ten and thirteen centuries old exhibiting the same anthropological features as are seen in those of our own day. This may be explained by a variety of causes, of which the chief is the maintenance by the Slavonians down to a very late period of gentile organization and gentile marriages, a fact vouched for, not only in the pages of Nestor, but still more by deep traces still visible in the face of society, the gens later on passing into the village community, and the colonization being carried on by great compact bodies. This has all along maintained the same characters. The Russians do not emigrate as isolated individuals; they migrate in wholo villages. The overwhelming numbers of the Slavonians, and the very great differences in ethnical type, belief, mythology, between the Aryans and Turaniaus, may have contributed in the same direction, and throughout the written history of the Slavonians wo see that, while a Russian man, far away from his home among Siberians, readily marries a native, the Russian woman seldom docs the like. All these causes, and especially the first-mentioned, have enabled the Slavonians to maintain their ethnical features in al

Sub

sians.

relatively high degree of purity, so as to assimilate foreign elements and make them reinforce or improve the ethnical type, without giving rise to half-breed races. The maintenance of the very same North-Russian type from Novgorod to the Pacific, with but minor differentiations on the outskirts-and this notwithstanding the great variety of races with which the Russians came in contactcannot but strike the observer. But a closer observation of what is going on even now on the recently colonized confines of the empire -where whole villages live, and will continue to live, without mixing with natives, but very slowly bringing them over to the Russian manner of life, and then very slowly taking in a few female elements from them-gives the key to this prominent feature of Russian life, which is a colonization on an immense scale, and assimilation of foreigners, without in turn losing the primary ethnical features.

Not so with the national customs. There are features-the wooden house, the oven, the bath-which the Russian never abandons though lost amidst alien populations. But when settled among the he Russian-the North-Russian-readily adapts himself to many other differences. He speaks Finnish with Finns, Mongolian with Buriats, Ostiak with Ostiaks; he shows remarkable facility in adapting his agricultural practices to new conditions, without, however, abandoning the village community; he becomes hunter, cattle-breeder, or fisherman, and carries on these occupations according to local usage; he modifies his dress and adapts his religious beliefs to the locality he inhabits. In consequence of all this, the Russian peasant (not, be it noted, the trader) must be recognized as the best colonizer among the Aryans; he lives on the best terms with Ostiaks, Tartars, Buriats, and even with Red Indians when lost in the prairies of the American Far-West. Three different branches, which may become three separate divisions nationalities, can be distinguished among the Russians since the of Rus- dawn of their history :-the Great Russians, the Little Russians (Malorusses or Ukrainians), and the White Russians (the Bielorusses). These correspond to the two currents of immigration mentioned above, the northern and southern, with perhaps an inter. mediate one, the proper place of the White Russians not having as yet been exactly determined. The primary distinctions between these branches have been increased during the last nine centuries by their contact with different nationalities,-the Great Russians taking in Finnish elements, the Little Russians undergoing an admixture of Turkish blood, and the White Russians submitting to Lithuanian influence. Moreover, notwithstanding the unity of language, it is easy to detect among the Great Russians themselves two separate branches, differing from one another by slight divergences of language and type and deep diversities of national character,the Central Russians and the Novgorodians; the latter extend throughout northern Russia into Siberia. They correspond, perhaps, to subdivisions mentioned by Nestor. It is worthy of notice, moreover, that many minor anthropological features can be distinguished both among the Great and Little Russians, depending probably on the assimilation of various minor subdivisions of the Ural-Altaians. The Great Russians number about 42,000,000, and occupy in one block the space enclosed by a line drawn from the White Sea to the sources of the western Düna, the Dneiper, and the Donetz, and thence, through the mouth of the Sura, by the Vettuga, to Mezen. To the east of this boundary they are mixed with TurcoFinns, but in the Ural Mountains they reappear in a compact body, and extend thence through southern Siberia and along the courses of the Lena and Amur. Great Russian nonconformists are disseminated among Little Russians in Tchernigoff and Moghileff, and they reappear in greater masses in Novorossia, as also in northern Caucasia.

The Little Russians, who number about 17,000,000, occupy the Steppes of southern Russia, the south-western slopes of the central plateau and those of the Carpathian and Lublin mountains, and the Carpathian plateau. The Sitch of the Zaporog Cossacks colonized the Steppes farther east, towards the Don, where they met with a large population of Great Russian runaways, constituting the present Don Cossacks. The Zaporog Cossacks, sent by Catherine II. to colonize the east coast of the Sea of Azoff, constituted there the Black Sea and later the Kubañ Cossacks (part of whom, the Nekrasovtsy, migrated to Turkey). They have also peopled large parts of Stavropol and northern Caucasia.

The White Russians, mixed to some extent with Great and Little Russians, Poles, and Lithuanians, now occupy the upper parts of the western slope of the central plateau. They number about 4,300,000. The Finnish stems, which in prehistoric times extended from the Obi all over northern Russia, even then were subdivided into Ugrians, Permians, Bulgarians, and Finns proper, who drove back the previous Lapp population from what is now Finland, and about the 7th century penetrated to the south of the Gulf of Finland, in the region of the Lives and Kurs, where they mixed to some extent with Lithuanians and Letts.

At present the stems of Finnish origin are represented in Russia by the following:-(a) the Western Finns; the Tavasts in central Finland; the Kvänes, in north-western Finland; the Karelians,

in the east, who also occupy the lake-regions of Olonetz and Archangel, and have settlements in separate villages in Novgorod and Tver; the Izhora and Vod, which are local names for the Finns on the Neva and the south-eastern coast of the Gulf of Finland; the Esthes in Esthonia and northern portion of Livonia; the Lives on the Gulf of Riga; and the Kors, mixed with the Letts; (b) the Northern Finns, or Lapps, in northern Finland and on the Kola peninsula, and the Samoyedes in Archangel; (c) the Volga Finns, or rather the old Bulgarian branch, to which belong the MORDVINIANS (q.v.) and perhaps the Tcheremisses in Kazan, Kostroma, and Vyatka, who are also classified by some authors with the following; (d) the Permians, or Cis-Uralian Finns, including the Votiaks on the east of Vyatka, the Permians in Perm, the Zyrians in Vologda, Archangel, Vyatka, and Perm, and the Tcheremisses; (e) the Ugrians, or Trans-Uralian Finns, including the Voguls on both slopes of the Urals, the Ostiaks in Tobolsk and partly in Tomsk, and the Madjares, or Ugrians.

The Turco-Tartars in European Russia number about 3,600,000. The following are their chief subdivisions. (1) The Tartars, of whom three different stems must be distinguished :-(a) the Kazaň Tartars on both banks of the Volga, below the mouth of the Oka, and on the lower Kama, penetrating also farther south in Ryazan, Tamboff, Samara, Simbirsk, and Penza; (b) the Tartars of Astrakhan at the mouth of the Volga; and (c) those of the Crimea, a great many of whom have recently emigrated to Turkey. There are, besides, a certain number of Tartars from the south-east in Minsk, Grodno, and Vilna. (2) The Bashkirs, who inhabit the slopes of the southern Urals, that is, the Steppes of Ufa and Orenburg, extending also into Perm and Samara. (3) The Tchuvashes, on the right bank of the Volga, in Kazañ and Simbirsk. (4) The Mescheriaks, a tribe of Finnish origin which formerly inhabited the basin of the Oka, and, driven thence during the 15th century by the Russian colonizers, immigrated into Ufa and Perm, where they now live among Bashkirs, having adopted their religion and customs. (5) The Tepters, also of Finnish origin, settled among Tartars and Bashkirs, together with the Mescheriaks, also in Samara and Vyatka. They have adopted the religion and customs of the Bashkirs, from whom they can hardly be distinguished. The Bashkirs, Mescheriaks, and Tepters have rendered able service to the Russian Government against the Kirghizes, and until 1863 they constituted a separate Bashkir and Mescheriak Cossacks army, employed for service in the Kirghiz Steppe. (6) The Kirghizes, whose true abodes were in Asia, in the Ishim and Kirghiz Steppe; but one section of them crossed the Urals and occupied the Steppes between the Urals and the Volga. Only the Horde of Bukeeff inhabits European Russia, north-east of Astrakhan, the remainder belonging to Turkestan and Siberia.

The Mongolian race is represented in Russia by the Lamaite Kalmuks, who inhabit the Steppes of Astrakhan between tho Volga, the Don, and the Kuma. They immigrated to tho mouth of the Volga from Dzungaria, in the 17th century, driving out the Tartars and Nogais, and after many wars with the Don Cossacks, followed by treaties of mutual assistance for military excursions, one part of them was taken in by the Don Cossacks, so that even now there are among these Cossacks several Kalmuk sotnias or squadrons. They live for the most part in tents, supporting themselves by cattle-breeding, and partly by agriculture.

The Semitic race is represented in Russia by upwards of 3,000,000 Jews and 3000 Karaites. The Jews first entered Poland from Germany during the crusades, and soon spread through Lithuania, Courland, the Ukraine, and, in the 18th century, Bessarabia. The rapidity with which they peopled certain towns and whole provinces was really prodigious. Thus, from having been but a few dozens at Odessa some eighty years since, they make now one-third of its population (73,400, out of 207,000). The law of Russia prohibits them from entering Great Russia, only the wealthiest and most educated enjoying this privilege; nevertheless they are met with everywhere, even on the Urals. Their chief abodes, however, continue to be Poland, the western provinces of Lithuania, White and Little Russia, and Bessarabia. In Russian Poland they are in the proportion of 1 to 7 inhabitants. In Kovno, Vilna, Moghileff, Grodno, Volhynia, Podolia, and probably also in Bessarabia and Kherson, they constitute, on the average, 10 to 16 per cent. of the population, while in separate districts the proportion reaches 30 to 36 per cent. (50.5 in Tchaussy). Organized as they are into a kind of community for mutual protection and mutual help (the Kahal), they soon become masters of the trade wherever they penetrate. In the villages they are mostly innkeepers, intermediaries in trade, and pawnbrokers. In many towns most of the skilled labourers and a great many of the unskilled (for instance, the grain-porters at Odessa and elsewhere) are Jews. In the 16 western provinces of Russia they numbered 2,843,400 in 1888, and about 432,000 in five Polish provinces. Less than 600,000 of them inhabit villages, the remainder being concentrated in towns.

The Karaites differ entirely from the Jews both in worship and in mode of life. They, too, are inclined to trade, but also success

Geo

tion of races.

Of West Europeans, only the Germans attain considerable num. bers (upwards of a million) in European Russia. In the Baltic provinces they constitute the ennobled landlord class, and that of tradesmen and artisans in towns. Considerable numbers of Germans, also tradesmen and artisans, were scattered throughout many of the larger towns of Russia as early as the 16th century, and to a much greater extent in the 18th century, German artisans having been invited by the Government to settle in Russia, and their numbers having steadily increased since. Finally, numbers of Germans were invited in 1762 to settle in southern Russia, as separate agricultural colonies, which gradually extended in the Don region and in northern Caucasia. Protected as they were by the right of self-government, exempted from military service, and endowed with considerable allotments of good land, these colonies are much wealthier than the neighbouring Russian peasants, from whom they have adopted the slowly modified village community. They are chiefly Lutherans, but many of them belong to other religious sects,-Anabaptists, Moravians, Mennonites (about 40,000). In certain districts (Akkerman, Odessa, Berdiansk, Kamyshin, Novouzensk) they constitute from 10 to 40 per cent. of the total population. The Swedes, who number about 300,000 in Finland, hardly reach 12,000 in European Russia, mostly in the Baltic pro

vinces.

The Roumanians (Moldavians) number not less than 800,000, and are still increasing. They inhabit the governments of Bessarabia, Podolia, Kherson, and Ekaterinoslaff. In Bessarabia they constitute from one-fourth to three-fourths of the population of certain districts. On the whole, the Novorossian governments (Bessarabia, Kherson, Ekaterinoslaff, and Taurida) exhibit the greatest variety of population. Little and Great Russians, Roumanians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Germans, Greeks, Frenchmen, Poles, Tartars, and Jews are mixed together and scattered about in small colonics, especially in Bessarabia. Of course, the Greeks inhabit chiefly the towns, where they carry on trade, as also do the Armenians, scattered through the towns of southern Russia, and appearing in larger numbers only in the district of Rostoff (10 per cent. of population).

However great the variety of nationalities inhabiting European graphical Russia, its ethnological composition is much simpler than might at distribu- first sight be supposed. The Russians-Great, Little, and White -largely prevail over all others, both numerically and as respects the territories they occupy in compact bodies. Central Russia is almost purely Great Russian, and represents a compact body of more than 30,000,000 inhabitants with but 1 to 5 per cent. of admixture of other nationalities. The governments on the Dnieper (Kieff, Volhynia, Tchernigoff, Podolia, and Pottava), as also the adjoining districts of Kharkoff, Voronezh, Kursk, and Don, are Little-Russian, or Ukrainian, with but a slight admixture of White and Great Russians, and some 12 per cent. of Jews. The Poles there number only 3 to 6 per cent. of the population-chiefly landholders-and are hated by the Ukrainians.

of the aggregate population of these three provinces.

Of the Turco-Tartars of castern Russia, the Bashkirs often revolted against Russian rule, and the traffic in Bashkir lands, recently carried on by the Orenburg administration, certainly does not tend to reconcile them. The Tcheremisses have often joined the Bashkirs in their revolts, but are rapidly losing their nationality. As regards the other Turco- and Finno-Tartars, the Mordvinians really have been assimilated to the Russians; the Moslem Tartars of Kazañ lived till recently on excellent terms with their Russian neighbours and would have continued to do so had no attempts been made to interfere with their land laws.

In western Russia, while an antipathy exists between Ukrainians and Poles, the Russian Government, by its harassing interference in religious, educational, and economical matters, has become antag onistic, not only to the Poles, but also to the Ukrainians; printing in Ukrainian is prohibited, and "Russification" is being carried on among Ukrainians by the same means as those employed in Poland. The same is true with the Esthes and Letts, whom the Government, while countenancing them to some extent in their antipathy to the German aristocracy, has not yet found means to conciliate."

The relative strength of the different ethnical elements of which Their the population of European Russia and Poland is composed may relative be seen from the following figures (Table IV.). They must be strength regarded, however, as rough estimates only. They were originally computed by M. Rittich for an aggregate population of 69,788,240, and in the following table they have merely been increased in proportion to the actual population of 84,495,000.

Saxons... Armenians and Georgians.. Tsigaus......

41,994,000 17,241,000

4,330,000

63,565,000

5,750,000

110,000

9,500

9,500

Total Slavonians..

69,444,000

Lithuanians.. Zhmuds.. Letts......

987,000

771,000

1,243,000

3,001,000

84,000 795,000

879,000

1,165,000 12,000

1,177,000

43,000

16,000

Zyrians...... Permians.. Voguls...

..................

..........

Ugriaus.

.........

Total Ural-Altaians............

year.

84,495,0001

PART III. EUROPean Russia—Statistics.? Russia is on the whole a thinly-peopled country, the average population being but 42 to the square mile. The density of population varies, however, very much in European Russia-from one inhabitant per square mile in the government of Arhangel to 102 in that of Moscow (exclusive of the capital) and 138 in Podolia. Two-thirds of the whole population are concentrated upon less than one-third of the whole surface. The most thicklypeopled parts form a strip of territory which extends froia Galicia through Kicff to Moscow, and comprises partly the most fertile governments of Russia and partly the manufacturing ones; next come a strip of fertile country to the south of the above and the manufacturing provinces of the upper Volga. The black-earth region has an average of 90 inhabitants per square mile; the central manufacturing region, 85; the western provinces, 79; the black-earth and lay region, 38; the black-carth Steppes, 33; the hilly tracts of the Crimea and Caucasus, 81; the forest-region proper, 26; the Steppes, 9; the far north, less than 2.

The rate at which the population is increasing throughout the empire is very considerable. It varies, however, very much in different parts, and even in European Russia, being almost twice as high in the fertile tracts of the south as it is in the north (1.8 to 10). The rapid increase is chiefly due to early marriages, the peasants for the most part marrying their sons at eighteen and their daughters at sixteen. The resulting high birth-rate compensates for the great mortality, and the Russian population is increasing more quickly than the Polish, Lithuanian, Finnish, or Tartar. 1980 the marriages, births, and deaths were returned as follows (Table V.)::

835,433 4,227,363 3,059,912 1,167,451

In

Total These figures agree pretty nearly with those for a series of years (1871-78), which gave an annual surplus of 945,000 for European Russia alone. In 1882, throughout the empire-leaving out of account Caucasus and Turgai-the births numbered 4,403,555 and the deaths 3,464,404, for an estimated population of 95,565,100. But the birth-rate and death-rate were very different in Russia proper and in the Asiatic dominions; in the former they reached respectively 4.83 and 3.77, and in the latter only 375 and 2.84. The low birth-rate in Asia counterbalances the low mortality. So also within Russia proper: in the central provinces the high mortality (35 per thousand) is compensated by high birth-rate (49), while in the western provinces, where the mortality is relatively small (27), the number of births is also the lowest (37).

On the whole, the mortality in Russia is greater than anywhere else in Europe. The lowest figures are found in Courland (20),

1 Bibliography.-Rittich, Ethnographical Map of Russia, and Ethnogr. Composition (Plemennoi Sostar) of Russia; Venukoff, Outskirts of Russia (Russ.); Works of the Expedition to the Western Provinces; Mem. of the Geogr. Society (Ethnography); Mem. of the Moscow Soc. of Friends of Nat. Science (Anthropology): Pauli, The Peoples of Russia; Narody Rosii, popular edition by M. Illin. For prehistoric anthropology, see Count Uvaroff, Archæology, I.; Inostrantseff, Prehistoric Man on Lake Ladoga; Budilovitch. Primitive Slavonians, 1879; A. Bogdanoff's extensive and most valuable researches in Mem. of Moscow Soc. of Friends of Nat. Sc.; the researches of Polyakoff and many others in various scientific periodicals (St Petersburg, Kazan universities); and Reports of the Archeol. Congresses. For subsequent periods, see numerous papers in Memoirs of Archæol. Soc., Mem. Ac. of Sciences, &c., and the works of Russian histo rians. Mezhoff's Bibliogr. Inderes, published yearly by the Russian Geographical Society, contain complete information about works and papers published.

2 For all statistics for European Russia, see "Recueil of Information" for

European Russia in 1882 (Sbornik Sredeniy), published in 1884 by the Central Statistical Committee, and the publications mentioned below under different Acads.

The rate of emigration from the Russian empire is not high. In Emigra 1871-80 the average number was 280,700 yearly, and the immigra- tion. Ural, Siberia, and Caucasus goes on extensively; figures, however, tion 245,500. But within the empire itself migration to South even approximate, are wanting. During the ten years 1872-81 no less than 406,180 Germans and 235,600 Austrians immigrated into Russia, chiefly to Poland and the south-western provinces.

A very great diversity of religions, including (besides numerous Religion varieties of Christianity) Mohammedanism, Shamanism, and Buddhism, are found in European Russia, corresponding for the Russians, with the exception of a number of White Russians who most part with the separate ethnological subdivisions. All belong to the Union, profess the Greek Orthodox faith or one or other of the numberless varieties of nonconformity. The Poles and most of the Lithuanians are Roman Catholics. The Esthes and all other Western Finns, the Germans, and the Swedes arc Protestant. The Tartars, the Bashkirs, and Kirghizes are Mohammedans; but the last-named have to a great extent maintained along with Mohammedanism their old Shamanism. The same holds good of the Mescheriaks, both Mosler and Christian. The Mordvinians are nearly all Greek Orthodox, as also are the Votiaks, Voguls, Tcheremisses, and Tchuvashes, but their religiors are, in reality, very interesting modifications of Shamanism, under the influence of some Christian and Moslem beliefs. The Voguls, though baptized, are in fact fetichists, as much as the unconverted Samoyedes. Finally, the Kalmucks are Buddhist Lainaites.

All these religions are met with in close proximity to one another, and their places of worship often stand side by side in the same town or village without giving rise to religious disturbances. The recent outbreaks against the Jews were directed, not against the Talmudist creed, but against the trading and exploiting In his relations with Moslems, community of the "Kahal.' Buddhists, and even fetichists, the Russian peasant looks rather to conduct than to creed, the latter being in his view simply a matter of nationality. Indeed, towards paganism, at least, he is perhaps even more than tolerant, preferring on the whole to keep on good terms with pagan divinities, and in difficult circumstancesespecially on travel and in hunting-not failing to present to them his offering. Any idea of proselytism is quite foreign to the ordinary Russian mind, and the outbursts of proselytizing zeal occasionally manifested by the clergy are really due to the desire clergy and of the Government. for Russification," and traccable to the influence of the higher

The various creeds of European Russia were estimated in 1879 as follows:-Greek Orthodox and Raskolniks, 63,835,000 (about 12,000,000 being Raskolniks); United Greeks and ArmenioGregorians, 55,000; Roman Catholics, 8,300,000; Protestants, 2,950,000; Jews, 3,000,000; Moslems, 2,600,000; Pagans, 26,000. In 1881 the number of Greek Orthodox throughout the empire, excluding two foreign bishoprics, was estimated at 61,941,000.

Nonconformity (Raskot) is a most important feature of Russian Nonconpopular life, and its influence and prevalence have rapidly grown formists. during the last twenty-five years.

When, towards the beginning of the 17th century, the Moscow principality fell under the rule of the Moscow boiars (one of whom, Godunoff, reached the throne), they took advantage of the power thus acquired to increase their wealth by a series of measures affecting land-holding and trade; they sanctioned and enforced by law the serfdom which had already froni economical causes found its way into Russian life. The great outbreak of 1608-12 weakened their power in favour of that of the czar, but without breaking it; and throughout the reigns of Michael and Alexis the ukazes were issued in the name of "the czar and boiars." Serfdom was reinforced by a series of laws, and the whole of the 17th century is char acterized by a rapid accumulation of wealth in the hands of boiars, by the development of luxury, imported from Poland, and by the struggle of a number of families to acquire the political power already enjoyed by their Polish neighbours. The same tendency