It appears from M. Herman's calculations, that there are in thirty-one governments in the north of Russia, 8,195,295 firs well adapted to large masts, each being above thirty inches in diameter-a number more than sufficient for a long supply of all the fleets in the world, besides 86,869,000 fit for building houses. In twenty-two governments only, there are 374,804 large oaks, each more than twenty-six inches in diameter, and 229,570,000 of a smaller size." A country thus supplied with such magnificent forests of timber, for ship-building, the construction of dwellings, and all the purposes of the arts, and so abundantly furnished with the means of transport by her net-work of rivers, may not be carelessly described as a mere frozen, barren waste; for these forests when they disappear, as the population increases, and civilization advances, will be succeeded by grain fields, and orchards, and prosperous communities, in the same manner in which we have seen the change wrought on American soil. It is doubtless true, that there is much waste land even within the limits of what has been designated as the agricultural district of the Russian Empire, and the northern portions of her territory, even within the temperate zone, can not be considered productive when compared with the Danubian provinces, or with the valley of the Mississippi; but then it should be remembered what large tracts of land are found unfit for cultivation in every country. How large a portion of the whole surface, for instance, in New England, is occupied by mountains and rugged hills that the plow can not visit; yet these very mountains, covered with forests, sparkling with streams, and filled with mineral wealth, afford the means of supporting an exceedingly dense population. The capabilities of Russia have evidently been too hastily judged; her rapid growth, unequalled except by our own, would indicate that no unusual proportion of her territory is waste and sterile, and there are many proofs that the Russians are subduing a continent, expanding themselves on every side, and redeeming the wilderness, after the manner of the Americans here.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE RELATIVE POSITION OF RUSSIA.

Whatever may be the extent of a nation's territory, or the productiveness of its soil, it can have no extended growth, or permanent greatness based on its own independent resources, if it is either hemmed in by other powerful nations, or excluded from adequate communication with the ocean. A nation thus situated can become great only by conquest or peaceful acquisition, thus securing to itself advantages which did not belong to its original domain. Russia has thus extended herself with astonishing rapidity; but this enlargement of her dominion has been not so much by overrunning contiguous countries as by the expansion of an internal life, which has sought space wherein to grow; and it is her present position, and what seems to be her immediate and inevitable future, that is presented for consideration here. Perhaps Americans may perceive in the picture enough of resemblance to our own position to awaken in them a new interest in regard to this European America, and to inquire whether two great nations now facing each other on the opposite shores of the Pacific, are not hereafter to be brought into more intimate association.

Like America Russia reaches from ocean to ocean, stretching across the whole breadth of Europe and Asia, and resting one wing on the Pacific and the other upon the Atlantic. She is thus placed, at either extremity of her empire, in communication with the commerce of the world. Through the Baltic she connects herself with Europe, and with the trade of the eastern coast of America, and eastward on the Pacific, there is opened to her the commerce of China, the East Indian Archipelago, and the Pacific slope of the American continent. From these two extremities the trade of the world may be drawn inward toward the heart of the empire. One acquisition has lately been made by Russia in the East, which will change the whole aspect of her eastern commerce, and will prove of the very highest importance in connection with the progress of our own population on the Pacific coast. This point will be made clear by the following quotation from Alison, and by the inspection of a good map: "The river Amoor, which flows "from the mountains of Mongolia into the ocean of Japan, "by a course twelve hundred miles in length, of which nine "hundred are navigable, in a deep channel, shut in on "either side by precipitous rocks, or shaded by noble forests, "is the real outlet of eastern Siberia; and though the Chi"nese are still masters of this splendid stream, it is as in"dispensible to Asiatic as the Volga is to European Russia, "and ere long it must fall under the dominion of the "Czar, and constitute the principal outlet of his immense "oriental provinces." Mr. Alison has underrated the size of the Amoor. It is twenty-two hundred miles in length, and navigable through a large portion of its whole extent. The upper portion of this stream lies within the Emperor's dominions, in the province of Irkoutsk, and with the Chinese in possession of its mouth, eastern Siberia is in a condition somewhat similar to that of the upper Mississippi valley before the Louisiana purchase. Russia has lately obtained the control of the valley of the Amoor to its mouth, and it will at once become the channel of an extensive commerce, not with the East alone, but with the

Pacific slope of America. Siberia is traversed from north to south by large navigable rivers, which empty, however, into the Arctic ocean; but so soon as the trade of these streams is carried on by steam vessels, changes will take place, such as have occurred on our western rivers, and these channels, united, as ultimately they will be, by railways pointing eastward and toward the valley of the Amoor, will pour into the sea of Japan, the mineral and other productions of southern and central Siberia, and the northern provinces of China, and bear back from other lands the means of comfort and civilization to the heart of northern Asia. On the shores of California and Oregon, and at the mouth of the Amoor, and in the harbors of the sea of Japan, Russians and Americans will meet for the exchanges of a mutual commerce, remote from the rest of Europe.

We shall scarcely overestimate the importance of the trade which, at no remote period, will flow to and from southern Siberia, and the adjacent provinces lately added to the Russian territory, if we may credit a distingushed English writer, who declares that the immense plains "which stretch to the eastward along the banks of the Amoor, are capable of containing all the nations of "Christendom in comfort and affluence." Again, by her possessions upon the Black Sea, she is placed in direct communication with the commerce of the Mediterranean, and through the Mediterranean she has a third channel connecting her with the general trade of the world. In this calculation, no notice is taken of her long line of sea coast on the Arctic Ocean. In those frozen regions it possesses less commercial importance. A country so vast as Russia could scarcely touch the sea more advantageously than she does, resting in the east on the Pacific, lying in the west along the Atlantic, for the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland are to her as to the Atlantic sea coast, while along the southern frontier of her European territory stretche the Black Sea. It is apparent that nothing more is want. ing but the possession of Constantinople and the control of the Dardanelles, to complete a territorial outline of the

most imposing character that earth has ever seen in the possession of a single Power, and to which earth can afford no parallel, except in North America. He who studies aright the position, resources, and progress of Russia, will see at once that the possession of Constantinople is merely a question of time. The idea that the Powers of western. Europe are able to check permanently the advance of Russia will not long be seriously entertained. The life of the Northern Empire lies beyond their reach, and she needs but to permit them to exhaust themselves upon her frontier positions, and quietly wait until they are forced backward by the resistless power of her growth. She is under no present necessity of possessing Constantinople; she requires only the power to control its owner, and shape for them a policy in accordance with her own, and the most splendid dreams of Muscovite greatness may then be realized, even while the Golden Horn remains in the possession of the Sultan.

It may not be uninteresting to the American reader to pause a moment here, in order to bestow a passing glance upon the general resemblance between the geographical position of Russia and North America, as well as a relationship of position-indicating, as it would seem, a closer connection between the two nations in their future career.

The comparison is instituted between Russia and North America because nothing in the future is more certain than that the North American continent, with its adjacent seas and islands, will be controlled by a single government. If the American Union continues, such a result will be reached by the inevitable law of national development. Russia and North America then are nearly equal in the extent of their possessions, and each is capable of supporting a population of a thousand millions, without overburthening its territory or exhausting its resources. They both stretch from ocean to ocean, each resting one broad wing upon the Atlantic and the other upon the Pacific; and together, the arms of their wide dominion reach round the globe. They face each other from the opposite shores of the Atlantic, for, as