NEVEGIA. As before mentioned, this river is to be the new track, or the means of joining the Niemen and the port of Riga. Its lower part is already so navigable as to admit of ships and galliots frequenting the sea, but only as far as the town of Koydany: from this place it becomes so rapid, that sluices must be had recourse to, if the projected junction of the Dvina and Niemen is to take place. Of this new track, mention was already made, under the article of the river Buldera. The VILIA, another great branch of the Niemen: about a hundred barks frequent it annually, principally with provisions. The rivulets Svitonsha and Simiana fall into it; through these, in spring, some vessels and floats of timber are conveyed. MERETZINKA, the LEBEDINKA, and BERESINKA, totally unfit for navigation; and even if rendered in some degree so, would never repay the expense. SHARRA is, of all the branches of the Niemen, the most favourable for extending the navigation. By means of the Oginsky Canal, a communication will be opened through it, with the rivers Yatzold, Pripit, and the Dnieper; and, consequently, a new track of water communication established with the Baltic, from the Ukraine, Little Russia, Volhynia, and Podolia. This work is of the highest importance in its consequences, as it will enable the inhabitants of these fruitful provinces to dispose of their products, which till now they have not had the means to do; and which circumstance has plunged them into that inertness of character, for which they are remarkable. The junction of these rivers will greatly facilitate the supply necessary for the Government depots of warlike stores on the frontier, from the Baltic to the very Dniester. The Sharra is already, in some places, tolerably navigable; to wit, from the town of Stonima, to its estuary in the Niemen. From Stonima upward, to the Canal of Oginsky, improvement is necessary: above the canal, the river is absorbed in the vast morasses of that country. To the Division of the Baltic Inland Navigation belongs the Western Bugg, or Bog, as the chief branch of the Upper Vistula. Middlesized barks, conducted by Podolians, and by the inhabitants of the Southern Galicia, go through the Bog to the Vistula, and thence to Dantzic, where they sell their merchandize at a little profit, and provide themselves with foreign necessaries, viz. salt, some oil, sugar, &c. for their return home. Inconvenient and circuitous as this track is, the amount of the trade is no less than four millions annually; this is carried on from the wharfs situate in Russia; viz. Ustilook, Kritnitz, Kladnef, Bengugh, Litho, Brest, and Opalin. The customs are collected at Brest. Without doubt this traffic may be improved; but the question is, Whether it is advantageous to the Russian Crown and to its subjects? It is difficult to prove that it is, as all the profits remain with the Elbing and Dantzic merchants. The only advantage accruing to the native seller is, that he has the opportunity of procuring foreign returns in kind, for his own products; but he never goes back with money. The merchandize thus procured, he cannot otherwise dispose of at home, but by barter for domestic products, with which he is again forced to go to Dantzic, to be disposed of there in the same manner as before. Rivers falling into the BUGG or Boo, from the RUSSIAN side. The MUCHAVITZA falls into the Bog at Lithan Brest, and is the only one worth notice, inasmuch as this river serves for a part of the canal proposed to be dug by the late King Stanislaus Augustus, to join the Pina, one of the chief branches of the Pripit (belonging to the Dnieper division), with the Bog; whereby a new track o water commu nication would be opened between the Dnieper, or the Black Sea, and the Baltic. If the Oginsky Canal opened a communication, by the Niemen, to Königsburg and Memel, so the Muchavitzkoy, or the King's Canal, would have been of infinite more advantage to the then existing Republic; as the same convenient mode of conveyance would have been extended through the Vistula to Warsaw, and from thence to Elling and Dantzic. This canal was already finished, and the upper parts of the Pina and Muchavitza rendered navigable; but it then appeared that the whole was effected upon wrong principles; first, sluices were thought necessary; and, secondly, no proper examination or levelling had been made of the country, in the line of direction of the passage, which was principally through low and marshy ground, wherein it was supposed the water would accumulate, to the proper height; but it was found, that the water from these morasses, the sources of the Muchavitza, (or rather a branch thereof, Mochalovla,) has a descent, or fall, of thirtyseven feet to the Pina. It was evident, therefore, that, without the help of sluices, this canal would rather be the means of drying or draining the morasses, than of any other use, as it contains water only in the spring; therefore the barks that profited by this season, to go up the Pripit, could never return the same track: in July the canal is perfectly dry. To make this canal of use, the erection of nine or ten sluices is absolutely necessary: particularly to answer certain military frontier purposes. END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. Printed by R. WATTS, |