Kara Seas—and the northern Pacific, that is, the Seas of Behring, Okhotsk, and Japan, bound it in the north and east. The Baltic, with its two deep indentations, the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, limits it on the north-west; and two sinuous lines of frontier separate it respectively from Sweden and Norway on the north-west and from Prussia, Austria, and Roumania on the west. The southern frontier is still unsettled, and has never remained unaltered for so many as twenty consecutive years. Quite recently it has been pushed southwards, on both the western and the eastern shores of the Black Sea, parts of Roumania and Asia Minor having been annexed in 1878. In Asia, beyond the Caspian, the southern boundary of the empire remains vague; the advance into the Turcoman Steppes and Afghan Turkestan and on the Pamir plateau is still in progress. Bokhara and Khiva, though represented as vassal khanates, are in reality mere dependencies of Russia. An approximately settled frontier-line begins only farther east, where the Russian and the Chinese empires meet on the borders of Eastern Turkestan, Mongolia, and Manchuria. But even there, the province of Kuldja has recently been occupied by Russia, and again restored to China; while in eastern Mongolia, the great overland route from Kiakhta to Peking, via Urga, is in fact in the hands of Russia, and it is difficult to predict how far Russian influence may extend should circumstances lead it to seek a footing on the thinly-peopled plateaus of Central Asia.

Russia has no oceanic possessions, and has abandoned those she owned in last century; her islands are mere appendages of the mainland to which they belong. Such are the Aland archipelago, Hochland, Tiitters, Dagö, and Osel in the Baltic Sea; Nova Zembla, with Kolguefi and Vaigatch, in the Barents Sea; the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea; the New Siberian archipelago, and the small group of the Medvyezhii Islands off the Siberian coast; the Commandor Islands off Kamchatka; the Shantar Islands and Saghalin in the Sea of Okhotsk. The Aleutian archipelago was sold to the United States in 1867, together with Alaska, and in 1874 the Kurile Islands were ceded to Japan.

A vast variety of physical features is obviously to be expected in a territory like this, which comprises on the one side the cotton and silk regions of Turkestan and Transcaucasia, and on the other the moss and lichen-clothed Arctic tundras and the Verkhoyansk Siberian pole of cold —the dry Transcaspian deserts and the regions watered by the monsoons on the coasts of the Sea of Japan. Still, if the border regions, that is, two narrow belts in the north and south, be left out of account, a striking uniformity of physical feature prevails. High plateaus, like those of Pamir (the “Roof of the World”) or of Armenia, and high mountain chains like the snow-clad summits of the Caucasus, the Alay, the Thian-Shan, the Sayan, are met with only on the outskirts of the empire.

Viewed broadly by the physical geographer, it appears as occupying the territories to the north-west of that great plateau-belt of the old continent—the backbone of Asia —which spreads with decreasing height and width from the high tableland of Tibet and Pamir to the lower plateaus of Mongolia, and thence north-eastwards through the Vitim region to the furthest extremity of Asia. It may be said to consist of the immense plains and flat lands which extend between the plateau-belt and the Arctic Ocean, including also the series of parallel chains and hilly spurs which skirt the plateau-belt on the north-west. It extends over the plateau itself, and crosses it, beyond Lake Baikal only.

This belt—the oldest geological continent of Asia— being unfit for agriculture and for the most part unsuited for permanent settlement, while the oceanic slopes of it have from the dawn of history been occupied by a dense population, has long prevented Slavonian colonization from reaching the Pacific. Russians happened to cross it in the 17th century, only in its narrowest and most northerly part, thus reaching the Pacific on the foggy and frozen coasts of the Sea of Okhotsk; and two centuries elapsed ere, after colonizing the depressions of the plateau around Lake Baikal, the Russians crossed the plateau in a more genial zone and descended to the Pacific by the Amur, rapidly spreading farther south, up the nearly uninhabited Usuri, to what is now the Gulf of Peter the Great. In the south-western higher portions of the plateau-belt the empire has only recently planted its foot on the Pamir; as we write, it is endeavouring to get command of the lower passages which give an easy access to the Afghan portion of the plateau; while already, within the present century, it has established itself firmly on the plateaus of Armenia.

A broad belt of hilly tracts—in every respect alpine in character, and displaying the same variety of climate and organic life as alpine tracts usually do—skirts the plateau-belt throughout its length on the north and north-west, forming an intermediate region between the plateaus and the plains. The Caucasus, the Elburz, the Kopet-dagh, and Paropamisus, the intricate and imperfectly known network of mountains west of the Pamir, the Thian-Shan and Ala-tau mountain regions, and farther north-east the Altai, the still unnamed complex of Minusinsk mountains, the intricate mountain-chains of Sayan, with those of the Olekma, Vitim, and Aldan, all of which are ranged en échelon— the former from north-west to south-east, and the others from south-west to north-east—all of these belong to one immense alpine belt bordering that of the plateaus. These have long been known to Russian colonists, who, seeking to escape religious prosecutions and exactions by the state, early penetrated into and rapidly pushed their small settlements up the better valleys of these tracts, and continued to spread everywhere as long as they found no obstacles in the shape of a former population or in unfavourable climatic conditions.

As for the flat-lands which extend from the Alpine hill-foots to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and assume the character either of dry deserts in the Aral-Caspian depression, or of low table-lands in central Russia and eastern Siberia, of lake-regions in north-west Russia and Finland, or of marshy prairies in western Siberia, and of

tundras in the far north,—their monotonous surfaces are diversified by only a few, and these for most part low, hilly tracts. Recently emerged from the Post-Pliocene sea, or cleared of their ice-sheet coverings, they preserve the very same features over immense stretches; and the few portions that rise above the general elevation have more the character of broad and gentle swellings than of mountain-chains. Of this class are the swampy plateaus of the Kola peninsula, gently sloping southwards to the lake-regions of Finland and north-west Russia; the λ'aldai table-lands, where all the great rivers of Russia take their rise; the broad and gently-sloping meridional belt of the Ural Mountains; and lastly, the Taimyr, Tunguska, and Verkhoyansk ridges in Siberia, which do not reach the snow-line, notwithstanding their sub-Arctic position. As to the picturesque Bureya mountains on the Amur, the forest-clothed Sikhota-alin on the Pacific, and the volcanic chains of Kamchatka, they belong to quite another orographical world; they are the border-ridges of the terraces by which the great plateau-belt descends to the depths of the Pacific Ocean.

It is owing to these leading orographical features— divined by Carl Ritter, but only within the present day revealed by geographical research—that so many of the great rivers of the old continent are comprised within the limits of the Russian empire. Taking rise on the plateau-belt, or in its Alpine outskirts, they flow, first, like the upper Rhone and Rhine, along high longitudinal valleys formerly filled up with great lakes; next they find their way through the rocky walls; and finally they enter the lowlands, where they become navigable, and, describing great curves to avoid here and there the minor plateaus and hilly tracts, they bring into water-communication with one another places thousands of miles apart. The double river-systems of the Volga and Kama, the Obi and Irtish, the Angara and Yenisei, the Lena and Vitim on the Arctic slope, the Amur and Sungari on the Pacific slope, are instances. They were the true channels of Russian colonization.

A broad depression,—the Aral-Caspian desert—has arisen where the plateau-belt has reached its greatest height and suddenly changes its direction from a northwestern into a north-eastern one; this desert is now filled only to a small extent by the salt waters of the Caspian, Aral, and Balkash inland seas; but it bears unmistakable traces of having been during Post-Pliocene times an immense inland basin. There the Volga, the Ural, the Sir Daria, and the Oxus discharge their waters without reaching the ocean, but continue to bring life to the rapidly drying Transcaspian Steppes, or connect by their river network, as the Volga does, the most remote parts of European Russia.

The above-described features of the physical geography of the empire explain the relative uniformity of this wide territory, in conjunction with the variety of physical features on its outskirts. They explain also the rapidity of the expansion of Slavonic colonization over these thinly peopled regions; and they also throw light upon the internal cohesion of the empire, which cannot fail to strike the traveller as he crosses this immense territory, and finds everywhere the same dominating race, the same features of life. In fact, in their advance from the basins of the Volkhoff and Dnieper to the foot of the Altai and Sayan Mountains, that is, along nearly a quarter of the earth’s circumference, the Russian colonizers could always find the same physical conditions, the same forests and prairies as they had left at home, the same facilities for agriculture, only modified somewhat by minor topographical features. New conditions of climate and soil, and consequently new cultures and civilizations, the Russians met with, in their expansion towards the south and east, only beyond the

Caucasus, in the Aral-Caspian region, and in the basin of the Usuri on the Pacific coast. Favoured by these conditions, the Russians not only conquered northern Asia— they colonized it.

The total population of the Russian empire was stated at 102,000,000 by estimates made in 1878-82; but it is multiplying rapidly, and, as the surplus of births over deaths reaches nearly 1,250,000 every year, it must now be somewhat more than 106 millions.

Within the empire a very great diversity of nationalities is comprised, due to the amalgamation or absorption by the Slavonian race of a variety of Ural-Altaic stems, of Turco-Tartars, Turco-Mongolians, and various Caucasian stems. Statistics as to their relative strength are still very imperfect, and their ethnical relations have not as yet been completely determined; but, considered broadly, they may be classified as follows:—

A. The Letto-Slavonians comprise ( a ) the Lithuanians and Letts on the lower Niemen and Düna, and ( b ) the Slavonians, that is, the Poles on the Vistula and Niemen and the Russians—Great, Little, and White—whose proper abodes are in European Russia, south of a line drawn from the Gulf of Finland to the middle Volga. Spreading from this region towards the north-east, east, and south-east, they have colonized north-east Russia, the Ural region, Caucasus, Siberia, and large parts of the Kirghiz Steppe,—the leading feature of their colonization having always been penetration in compact masses among the original inhabitants. Thus, on northern Caucasus the Russians (chiefly Little Russians) already constitute a compact rural population of nearly 1,500,000, that is, about a quarter of the total population of Caucasia. In Western Siberia the Great Russians already number more than 2,300,000 agriculturists, constituting four-fifths of the entire population; in Eastern Siberia they number more than 1,000,000, that is, probably more than the original inhabitants; and the Kirghiz Steppe has also begun rapidly to be colonized within the last twenty years. It is only in the more densely peopled Turkestan, and in the recently annexed Transcaspian region, that Russian settlers continue to bear but a small proportion to the natives (who are more than 4,600,000 strong). The Slavonians altogether number more than 75,000,000, of which number 5,600,000 are Poles.

Swedes (310,000), Germans (1,240,000), Roumanians, Serbs, <kc., may number altogether about 2,500,000.

B. A great variety of populations belonging to the Caucasian race, but not yet well classified, some of which are considered to be remainders of formerly larger nationalities pushed aside into the mountain tracts during their migrations, are met with on Caucasus. Such are the Georgians, Ossetes, Lesghians, who fall little short of 2,500,000, and the Armenians, about 1,000,000.

C. The Iranian branch is represented by some 130,000 Persians and Kurds in Caucasia and Transcaucasia, and by Tajiks in Turkestan, mixed with Turco-Tartar Sarts. The nomad Tsigans, or Gipsies, numbering nearly 12,000, may be mentioned under this head.

D. The Semitic branch consists of upwards of 3,000,000 Jews in Poland, in west and south-west Russia, and on Caucasus and in the towns of Central Asia, and of a few thousand Karaite Jews.

E. The Ural-Altaic branch comprises two great subdivisions—the Finnish and the Turco-Tartarian stems, mixed to some extent with Mongolians. The former (see below) occupy, broadly speaking, a wide stretch of territory to the north of the Slavonians, from the Baltic to the Yenisei, and include the Baltic Finns, the Northern Finns, the Volga Finns, and the Ugrians. The Russians have already spread among the last two in compact masses,

and, while some stems, like the Ostiaks, are rapidly disappearing, others, like the Mordvinians, Permians, &c., are losing their national character, and becoming assimilated to the Russians. The West Finns alone have fully maintained their national features, and happen to have constituted a nationality developing into a separate state.

The Turco-Tartars (nearly 10,000,000) comprise the Tartars, the Bashkirs, the Kirghizes, the Uzbegs, and the Turcomans of the Aral-Caspian region, the Yakuts on the Lena, and a variety of smaller stems in East Russia and Caucasia. They occupy another broad belt which extends from the Aral-Caspian depression to the eastern parts of the Arctic coast.

F. The Mongol-Manchurian stems of the Tunguses, and the Golds, and the Manchus proper, come next, occupying the eastern parts of the mountain-belt and the plateau itself in Siberia, the Tunguses also projecting north-westwards, so as to separate the Yakuts from their southern Turkish brethren. Small stems of the same family also pass a nomad existence in the basin of the Amur. They are rapidly diminishing in number, and can hardly be estimated at more than 50,000.

G. The Mongolian branch is represented by nearly half a million of Kalmucks on the Altai outskirts of the great plateau and around the Caspian, and by nearly 250,000 Buriats in and around the Baikal depression.

H. A variety of stems, not yet well classified, are met with on the Pacific coasts. Such are the Tchuktchies, the Kamchadales, the Koryaks in the north-east, the Ghilyaks on the Amur, and the Ainos in Saghalin.

Statistics of the relative strength of different nationalities in the Russian empire, which, however, must be considered only as rough estimates, are given (in millions) in the following table (I.) :— [table]

The area and population of the various divisions of the Russian empire are given in the following table :— [table]

[table]

Of the areas given in the table, the following (298,636 square miles) are occupied by internal waters (larger lakes and estuaries) :—

The islands included in the above statement have the following .areas (total 91,182 square miles) :— [table]

The Russian empire falls into two great subdivisions, the European and the Asiatic, the latter of which, representing an aggregate of nearly 6,500,000 square miles, with a population of only 16 million inhabitants, may be considered as held by colonies. The European dominions comprise European Russia, Finland, which is in fact a separate nationality treated to some extent as an allied state, and Poland, whose very name has been erased from official documents, but which nevertheless continues to pursue its own development. The Asiatic dominions comprise the following great subdivisions :—Caucasia (q.v.), under a separate governor-general; the Transcaspian region, which is under the governor-general of Caucasus; the Kirghiz Steppes; Turkestan (q.v.), under separate governors-general; Western Siberia and Eastern Siberia (see Siberia); and the Amur region, which last comprises also the Pacific coast region and Kamchatka (see Kamchatka and Maritime Province). The administrative subdivisions, with their populations, as estimated for 1882 for European Russia, Poland, and Caucasus, 1881 for Finland, and 1878-82 for the remainder (no regular census having been taken since 1858), are shown above in Table II.

The empire contains only twelve cities with a population exceeding 100,000:—St Petersburg, 929,090 (1881); Moscow, 753,469 (1884); Warsaw, 406,260 (1882); Odessa, 217,000(1882); Riga, 169,330 (1881); Kharkoff, 159,660 (1883); Kazan, 140,730 (1883); Kishineff, 130,000; Kieff, 127,250 (1874); Lodz, 113,146, in Poland (1884); Saratoff, 112,428 (1882); Tiflis, 104,020 (1883); and Tashkend, 100,000. According to the most recent returns Vilna, Orel, Rostoff, Astrakhan, Nikolaieff, Dünaburg, Tula, Samara, Taganrog, Kherson, Nijni-Novgorod, Berditcheff, Bobruisk, Zhitomir, Minsk, Vitebsk, Elisabetgrad, Reval, and Voronezh had from 94,000 to 50,000 inhabitants, while 61 towns more in European Russia, Finland, and Poland, and 20 in the Asiatic dominions, had from 50,000 to 20,000 inhabitants. The number of towns above 10,000 is considerable, but they are mostly mere administrative centres; many villages have greater importance.

Only 9,263,000 (or 9 per cent.) of the aggregate population of Russia inhabit towns, the number of which is 601 in the 50 Russian governments. The great number of the Russian towns are mere villages; their inhabitants depend on agriculture, and the houses are mostly built of wood, only 127,000 out of about 787,000 houses in towns being built of stone. Of the 68,600,000 who in 1882 formed the rural population of European Russia the greater part were settled in 555,278 villages, almost entirely built of wood; nearly one-seventieth of the houses are destroyed by fire yearly (164,400 out of 10,649,000 in 1882).

Russia is an absolute and strongly centralized monarchy. The primary unit of state organization is the village community, or mir. A number of such communities are united into volosts, whose peasant inhabitants elect an elder (yolost-noy starshina) and a peasants’ tribunal ( yolostnoy sud). Placed, however, under the uncontrolled rule of a state official—the mirovoyposrednik— and of the police, the elder of the volost and his clerk have become mere organs of the local police and tax-gatherers, while the tribunal of the volost is at the mercy both of influential land-proprietors and of the wealthier peasants or merchants. The system of local self-government is continued in the elective district and provincial assemblies—the zemstvo— on the one hand, and on the other in the elective justices of the peace (mirovoy sudia), whose periodical gatherings (mirovoy syezd) are courts of appeal against the decisions of the individual justices. But neither of these institutions—and least of all the zemstvo—is capable of acquiring the necessary independence. The zemstvos—one for each district, and another for the province—consist of a representative assembly (zemskoye Sobraniye) and an executive Gemskaya τιprava) nominated by the former. The sobraniye consists of three classes of delegates :—the landed proprietors (all nobles possessing more than 590 acres, and delegates from the remainder, along with delegates from the clergy in their capacity of landed proprietors); representatives of the merchants, artisans, and urban population; and representatives of the peasants, indirectly elected,—matters being usually so adjusted that this class is less numerous than the aggregate of the other two. In theory the zemstvos have large powers in relation to the incidence of taxation, as well as in matters affecting education, public health, roads, &c. But in reality they are for the most part compelled to limit themselves to the adjustment of the state taxation, which is so high that new taxes for education, sanitary purposes, and so on, must necessarily be very limited. Moreover, the decisions of the zemstvos are jealously controlled by the representative of the central Government,— the governor,—and promptly annulled whenever they manifest...