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THE ECONOMIC RESOURCES OF RUSSIA 103
as inexhaustible, provided that transport facilities are
forthcoming. The other chief sources for the supply of
timber, the Canadian, American, and Scandinavian forests,
have been sorely depleted and cannot possibly increase,
their yield ; it therefore appears that Russia is bound to
become, to an even greater extent than at present, the
chief provider of the world’s market of this valuable material
for the use of building, for navigation, wood pulp, and
many other purposes. While the supplies of wood from
other countries are necessarily steadily diminishing, supplies
from the almost limitless forests of European and Asiatic
Russia are on the increase owing to the improved shipping
facilities through the Kara Sea to the Yenisei, to the White
Sea and Alexandrovsk on the Murman coast. The railway
connecting Petrograd with Alexandrovsk and the projected
railway lines to the mouth of the gigantic Rivers Yenisei
and Obi will considerably increase the possibilities of the
export of timber. It can be said, without exaggeration,
that Russian resources of timber represent an untold wealth
of the country, and that Great Britain, as well as other
countries of the world, will, in the future, be obliged to
draw on these resources. The timber trade in Russia stands
next to the grain trade. The average annual exports
during the years 1906-10 were : from Riga, 1,216,129 tons;
from Libau, 164,516 tons ; from Archangel, 633,709 tons ;
from Petrograd-Cronstadt, 962,903 tons ; Windau, 262,903
tons. In the years preceding the outbreak of war, Great
Britain received half her imports of wood from Russia, a
proportion which will increase in favour of Russia in the
future. It may, therefore, be assumed that in regard to
timber, Russia occupies the position of a purveyor without
the services of whom Great Britain could not exist for
long.
Fur.—The same may be said of another article of export
coming from the North of Russia, valuable furs which make
the London market the centre of the fur trade of the world.
According to the Russian Statistical Annual published in 1915,
the number of wild animals and game killed in professional
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