of felection to a fet of men rendered incapable, by fituation or intereft, of fympathifing in the welfare of those over whom they exercife authority. The colony established in the territory of Tom.fk is of all the moft miferable and ill peopled. I am ignorant of the cause. These colonies in general want women; whence the greater part of the young people, being unable to marry, give themfelves up to debauchery. It must be confeffed that the choice of perfons destined to people Siberia is extremely faulty. Thofe to whom it is committed are the Ruffian provincial gentry. I have feen, among the wretched pea fants whom the lot fell, infirm and difabled perfons, men long married without has ing had any children, and old men abfolutely unfit for population. What is still more fhocking, is, that lords are found, who, from a fordid difpofition, have the inhumanity to fend away married men, when arrived at an age in which they can do them little more fervice. By thefe means, they feparate them from their wives and numerous families, and fend them to perith with grief and diftrefs in these inhofpitable regions. Hence it happens that these poor wretches, in order to obtain a companion and helpmate, forget in courfe of time that they have left a wife and children in their own country, and contract marriage with the firft female whom they meet in their new fettlement. Many have told me, with tears in their eyes, how afflicted they were at being obliged to abandon their families, with whom they could have lived perfectly happy, had they been permitted to carry them along with them into Siberia; in which cafe, far from complaining, they would have bleft the hand which had delivered them from the tyrannical yoke of the lords under whom they formerly lived.' The German colonies on the Volga afford an interesting article to those who fpeculate on the means of improving an uncultivated country. The foil and climate, however, are but moderately favourable to the farmer; and the induftrious artifans, of whom there are a confiderable number and variety, do not seem yet to have acquired an adequate market for their goods. Many of the defart tracts in the neighbourhood of the Cafpian fea contain falt-springs and lakes. Of thefe, one of the moft confiderable is that commonly called the lake of Elton, properly the Altan- Nor, (golden lake,) fituated in the government of Saratof, not far from the Volga. We fhall tranflate part of the defcription of this lake, which fupplies the furrounding country with falt: The Altan-Nor may be regarded as inexhauftible in falt, and it is not difficult to difcover the caufe of its riches. The brine collected in this lake, from the falt ftreams which run into it, has a furface more than fufficient for evaporation; and the falt remains, and forms year after year new layers. It is poffible that wet years may fometimes increase the brine, but the diminution of falt can scarcely be come fenfible in comparison to the whole mafs. The falt has hitherto been obtained at three different places on the bank: but what has been taken is fcarcely any thing compared to the whole quantity, and even this lofs is repaired in a very few years. The depth of the bed of falt which covers the bottom of the lake has not been yet founded. When they work it, they begin with taking away the first cruft which has been formed during the year: this falt, having not yet acquired its perfect solidity and maturity, is laid afide. The fecond layer, formed in the preceding year, is then taken off. These layers are feparated from each other by a flight interpofition of black mud. When come to the fifth layer, they find between it and the fourth a fimilar mud four fpans in depth. Under it are other layers of falt, thinner and more compact than the upper. It is not poffible to found deeper, on account of the mud, which becomes too fluid. The layer which they were now working was of an extraordinary thicknefs, owing to the great dry. nefs of the fummer. The year's falt formed a bed nearly five fingers thick, and it was fill augmenting. The eaft winds having caufed the falt waters of the bank to retire, the manner of formation of the falt was diftin&tly fhewn. It was fpread in clots, thin, but of the fize of a fpan. When the weather is calm, thefe form at the furface of the brine in pellicles, or small very thin crufts; which, acquiring a certain weight, fall to the bottom, and accumulate layer on layer. The little intermediate fpaces fill up by the formation of new falt, fo that the whole heap becomes one mafs. When these clots are detached, they prefent, below the cubes and on the furface, very fine needles of Glauber's falt, which have a beautiful appearance. These cubes and needles are principally formed in the cool feafon of autumn, whence the fummer's falt is always the beft, being lefs adulterated by the bitter falt. It is in this refpect that the fal gem of Ilezki is much fuperior to the falt of Elton. The fprings which arife from the bed of the lake make themfelves a paffage across the fait, and form canals. If, after the retreat of the waters, a person wishes to cross the lake on foot, he must take care of these channels, because he would run the risk of plunging into the black mud with which they are filled. The falt water of thefe fprings has commonly a reddish appearance, and a strong smell of rotten eggs. There forms on it a fat various-coloured pellicle fwimming on the furface. When the falt waters of the lake are confiderably high, and the fun fhines on them, they appear quite red from a distance. When I was witnefs of this phænomenon, the brine had. fomewhat of a fire colour. The year's falt which forms the upper layer, and which has not yet acquired all its confiftence, does not become white, and only hardens at the furface; on breaking it, its colour is a deep red. It has at the fame time that violet or strawberry fmell which is remarked in all the red falts, and preferves it a long time. In fome places it takes a greenish hue.' Having thus given our readers a few fpecimens of the information and amufement which they may expect from this great and valuable work, we fhall only add that each volume is terminated by an appendix, containing a defcription, in Latin, of the various new or uncommon objects of natural history mentioned 3 tioned in the tour; and that to the fifth volume are annexed additions and explanations relative to various points, taken, from the writings of Gmelin, Lepechin, and other travellers. through the fame countries. The plates and maps are important companions. The former contain chiefly reprefentations of fubjects of natural hiftory; alfo portraits of men and women, of different tribes, &c. &c. ART. II. The Marquis DE CASAUX's Confiderations on the Effects of THE [Article concluded from the Review for February.] HE measure which this profound writer principally and forcibly recommends, in his principles of taxation, is—to (pare the Poor, not by forbearing to tax the neceflaries of life, for they are every where either directly or indirectly taxed, but by allowing the people an increafe of wages proportioned to the amount of their taxes; or rather by leaving it to labour, and indeed to every article that is bought or used by man, to find its own level; abandoning the abfurd practice of railing the price of commodities, and at the fame time beating down as low as poffible the wages of the working part of the public. Every ftatesman, of every country, he obferves, has always profeffed a defire to fpare the poor working man: but thefe profeffions were delufive and never realized. In England, (fays he,) where they are as loud as in any other part of the world in their expreffions of pity for the lot of the poor man, malt, beer, fpirits, candles, coals, &c. are taxed, as if he never ufed any of them. It is true that they begin by faying, with respect to beer and fpirits, that the object of the duty laid on them was to prevent exceffes equally prejudicial to morals and to health: but who could not fee through the hypocrify of fuch a declaration, when the minifter was always taking credit for the progreflive produce of this very duty, as much as for that of all the others? who could be blind to the real object of this tax, when it was feen that all others, which, like this, bore equally on the poor and on the rich, were the most productive, the most certain, and the most eafy to be collected? In my plan, I will be as cautious and circumfpect as they are in England, where it is not the barley, the wheat, nor any other fort of grain, that is taxed, for that would be dreadful as they fay; they only tax the malt, which cannot be made without a prodigious quantity of barley; the beer, that cannot be made without malt; and fpirits, which can be diftilled only from wheat and other grain of which great quantities are annually confumed in diftilleries. How much would government find itself embarraffed, were the poor working people to renounce and abitain from thefe very precious and productive immoralities!' The Ai. The author comes at laft to his plan for raifing the immenfe fum of 500 millions of livres a-year, by means of one fingle tax, but a tax which would bear at once and in the fairest proportion on every clafs of men-a tax on wheat and fuch other grain as is used in France in making bread. He eftimates the quantity of wheat neceffary for feeding 24 millions of people at 48 millions of feptiers *. A duty of 11 livres 10 fous + per feptier, on 16 millions of feptiers of wheat ufed by the working part of the community, would produce Ditto of 8 livres 5 fous per feptier on 16 millions of feptiers of every other fort of grain used by the fame Total of the duty on what is confumed by the la- 184,000,000 132,000,000 316,000,000 184,000,000 500,000,000 The author next proceeds to anfwer, with great ability, the objections that might be ftarted against this tax: he obferves that of the fum of 316 millions to be raised on the 16 millions of working people, one half would be paid by thofe who cultivate the earth, the other by thofe who are employed in trades and manufactures. Of the former he speaks first. The fhare which they must bear of this new tax amounts to 158 millions: but this is not all; for the tax must neceffarily raise the price of all the articles which they confume; -he estimates the rife at 11 per cent.; fo that what coft them, before the tax, 833 millions. 333 thoufand 333 livres, will coft, after it is laid on, additionally which, added to their fhare of the tax, viz. would make the whole of the additional burden 91,666,666 158,000,000 amount to 249,666,666 this, added to the whole of their former earnings or wages, which produced annually would make 833-333-333 1,082,999,999 and thus they would find themfelves not only enabled to bear their proportion of this additional burden, without being *The feptier is a French meafure containing about twelve English bufhels. + In the original we find 11 livres 10 fhillings: but it is evident, from cafting up the fum, that this must be an error of the press. deprived deprived of any one comfort that they enjoyed before, but actually to add fomething to their former ftock, as appears from the following statement: The total produce of the land amounted, before the tax, as has been already obferved, to A rife of 11 per cent. on it, amounting to would make the whole from which deduct the fum which the farmers must pay either to or in confequence of the tax, viz. there will remain in their pockets Before the tax, they had 2,500,000,000 275,000,000 2,775,000,000 1,082,999,999 1,692,000,001 1,666,666,566 The difference therefore in their favour will be 25,333,335 that is to fay, fomething more than 10 per cent.—of which they must pay about one half to those who may be supposed to have lent them the 249,666,666 which the rife of the price of labour would oblige them to advance to their labourers, and which advance could not be withholden from them confiftently with justice any more than with found policy; it being a truth, as our author contends, that the confumption of the articles which they use cannot be diminished, without occafioning a proportional diminution in the reproduction, and confequently a lofs to the community at large. After having repelled a great variety of objections to the tax, which are too long to be detailed, and cannot well be abridged, (two only excepted, which we shall mention prefently,) the Marquis fhews that, by being made payable at the mill where and when the corn was ground, it would not only be eafily collected, and at very little expence, but would also be attended with this advantage, that it might be paid every week, and fo be conftantly arriving at the exchequer to answer the public exigencies. It would alfo be extremely beneficial in this refpect, that, though producing the largest revenue ever raised in any part of the world on any one article, it would fall lightly on individuals; for a man poffeffing 100 thousand livres a year would not have to pay more towards it than 1500 livres; a man who had 20,000 not more than 300; and a man who had 1000 only 15; it would not increase the price of articles produced by manufactures and agriculture more than one and a half per cent. and the burden of this increafe would not fall on a fingle working man in the community. We now come to the two objections to which we have just alluded; and which cannot but have weight in a commercial country. One is, that the tax would raife the price of labour, and confequently injure the export trade, by making our manu factures |