THE COAL INDUSTRY.
of industry and ways of communication. And nevertheless, if our consumption be compared with that in other civilized countries, it appears that in Russia there are 4 poods to one inhabitant; while in England there are 252 poods, in Belgium 188 poods; in the United States, 139 poods; in Germany 112 poods; in France 58 poods; and even in Austria-Hungary 36 poods, or 9 times more than in Russia. This great difference depends without doubt mainly upon the circumstance that coal fuel is in our country hardly at all in use for domestic heating, with the exception perhaps of the Kingdom of Poland. Not more than 11 per cent of all the coal got in Russia or im> ported from abroad is expended in this way. The second cause consists in the feeble development of industry, and in the sluggishness with which in our country it is passing from wood fuel to mineral. It is enough to say that until now out of all the fuel consumed by manufactories, works, railways, and river steamers, only */* are coal and '/» naphtha residues and peat, while the remaining a/t are -wood and charcoal. In metallurgical industries, in parti" cular, wood fuel forms even 50 per cent. Thus, the general defects of our industrial activity present an obstacle to the development of the coal industry.
2. The Naphtha Industry. A quite different picture, it would seem, is presented by our naphtha industry. Naphtha appeared in the character of a fuel only very recently, and quickly gained an extensive market, mainly In the Volga districts and in the neighbouring industrial governments. The chief centre of our naphtha industry is in the Baku government,   upon the Apsheron
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