The system of Russian canals and rivers has been justly compared to a gigantic tree whose branches spread over every part of the empire.

The Volga forms the trunk of this tree, and it has for roots seventy mouths opening into the Caspian Sea.

It is navigable as far as Rjef, a town in the government of Tver, that is, along the greater part of its course.
The steamboats plying between Perm and Nijni-Novgorod rapidly perform the two hundred and fifty miles which separate this town from the town of Kasan.

It is true that these boats have only to descend the Volga, which adds nearly two miles of current per hour to their own speed; but on arriving at the confluence of the Kama, a little below Kasan, they are obliged to quit the Volga for the smaller river, up which they ascend to Perm.

Powerful as were her machines, the Caucasus could not thus, after entering the Kama, make against the current more than ten miles an hour.