OF THE CRIMEA.

481

them with their urine, and dropping thelr excrements uponthem. Every place where fheep remain during the night,and repofe after being watered, likewife afFords good earth forthe extraction of nitre; unlefs it be too much impregnatedwith falt. This earth is completely lixiviated in tubs, or cafksof a moderate fize; and is fo rieh, that, aecording to theTartar computation, it yields a twentieth part of falt-petre,which is already provided there with its alkaline bafis, andrequires no farther addition of pot-afh. The fecond ley isagain poured on the frefh earth, and boiled in fmall kettles,into which about fixteen eimers of the ley are graduallyintroduced; fo that one boiling in general continues twenty-four hours. The eimer yields about two pounds of falt-petre.In its purification, the Tartars employ for each ocka the whiteof an egg, which is added to the re-difTolved nitre: after fuchprocefs it becomes tolerably pure, and is fold at forty-fiveor fifty kopeeks the ocka, confequently at the rate of fome-what lefs than fix rubles the pood. Formerly, the price isfaid to have fearcely exceeded two, and in Anatolia it wasvended at nearly eight rubles per pood. Heaps of afhes,fimilar to thofe above mentioned, alfo exift even in the defertedvillages on the peninfula of the Bofphorus, which might fur-nifh large fupplies of falt-petre.

When we confider the confined ftate of induftry, the prefentthin population, and the feanty produ&ion of the fruits of theearth, Crim-Tartary cannot promife itfelf any great Importor export trade; efpecially from its ifolated fituation, and itsdiftance from the interior provinces of Rufha, which aboundin grain. Notwithftanding its advantageous pofition, with

vol. 11. 3 cl refpedr