INLAND NAVIGATION. ,

25

hundred and eighteen wersts by the way of the rivers Keofstia, lake Beila,and Shacksna, falling into the Wolga at the same place before mentionedonly one hundred and ten feet.

This being the lowest or most level part of the country, attended withthe least falls, and requiring the least number of locks to be made, andthe rivers Swire and Shacksna, and a great part of the rivers Koefslia andWhitigor, being already navigable for small vessels which pass the wholeyear backwards and forwards, except only when the rivers are frozen ;captain Perry there recommended the last survey to his czarish majesty,as abundantly preferable for making the intended communication andcanals*.

What was left undone by Peter the Great has been carrying on andcompleting, with the utmost assiduity, by his successors ; and a commu-nication is now effected between the Baltic, or rather the Ocean, andthe Caspian sea, by which a navigation is opened to Persia: a newcommunication with the river Wolga is likewise undertaken, the oldone being found so dangerous as to be almost useless.

Several other works of this kind are carrying on, for the benefit oftrade and commerce, by order of the present empress, in different partsof her extensive dominions; and the most experienced and able engi-neers have been engaged from every country in the world ; which willnot fail to render Petersburg, what Peter the Great intended it should be,the emporium of the North, if not of Europe.

A short sketch of the works carried on in Russia for the improve-ment of inland navigation, since the death of Peter the Great, some ofwhich, as I have before observed, were begun by him, and perfectedby his great successors, will shew the attention there paid to the internalcommerce of that vast country: and when we consider the great labour

and

* See Perry’s State of Rusiia.

E