4Öo

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE PENINSULA

burki at three rubles each. In Karaffubafar, fome Greeksand Armenians have eftablifhed a foap-manufa£tory, andfeveral for making good candles. In tbe fame town are manyArmenians who make indifferent earthenware, tiles, and pipesfor condu&ing water. Large quantities of the latter are like-wife made in villages, efpecially in Sobla, where the clay isof an excellent quality. Sadlers' and fhoemakers' work isneatly executed, efpecially in Bakhtfhifarai.—The Tartar moun-taineers chiefly furnifh the market with wheels of all fizes;which differ greatly in point of ftrength, and are awkwardlyconftru&ed.

Since the year 1793, fome Greeks, efpecially in the vicinityof Kaffa, have employed themfelves during the autumn inburning foda, or Kallia, in pits, from the Atriplex laciniata andthe Salfola altißima. It is exported to great advantage in roundmaffes, formed while it is melting ; and, in this ftate, its primecoft is five rubles the Kantar, (440 ocka, about three poods,equal to a Vienna hundred weight.) Each hundred weightof foda requires about fifty-fix Tartar cart-loads of herbs. Infome villages, for inftance in Aktafhi-Keeyat on the banks ofthe Salgir, the Tartars ftill manufaäure falt-petre; large quan-tities of which were formerly prepared in the Crimea ; andthirty or forty thoufand ockas were often exported in one yearto Conftantinople. They collect the nitrous earth chiefly fromthe heaps of afhes, or Kurgan-Obo, which, according to theirancient cuftom, are accumulated from their fire-places in all thevillages of the plains, and which principally confift of the afhesanfing from dung-turf. As thefe heaps are dry and warm,the fheep delight to He on them in the winter; moiftening

them