)
at Chiaturi in the Kvirila valley in Kutais. Steam coal of good quality
is reported to exist about 30 m. inland from the open roadstead of
Ochemchiri in Kutais, but it is not mined. About 50,000 tons of coal of
very poor quality are, however, extracted annually, and the same
quantity of salt in the Armenian highlands and in Kuban. Small
quantities of quicksilver, sulphur and iron are obtained. But all these
are insignificant in comparison with the mineral oil industry of Baku,
which in normal times yields annually between ten and eleven million
tons of crude oil (naphtha). A good deal of this is transported by
gravitation from Baku to Batum on the Black Sea by means of a pipe laid
overland. The refined oil is exported as kerosene or petroleum, the
heavier refuse (_mazut_) is used as fuel. Naphtha is also obtained,
though in much smaller quantities, in Terek and Kuban, in Tiflis and
Daghestan. Numerous mineral springs (chalybeate and sulphurous) exist
both north and south of the Caucasus ranges, e.g. at Pyatigorsk,
Zhelesnovodsk, Essentuki, and Kislovodsk in Terek, and at Tiflis,
Abbas-tuman and Borzhom in the government of Tiflis.

_Manufacturing_ industry is confined to a few articles and commodities,
such as cement, tea, tin cans (for oil), cotton goods, oil refineries,
tobacco factories, flour-mills, silk-winding mills (especially at Shusha
and Jebrail in the south of Elisavetpol), distilleries and breweries. On
the other hand, the domestic industries are extensively carried on and
exhibit a high degree of technical skill and artistic taste. Carpets
(especially at Shusha), silk, cotton and woollen goods, felts and fur
cloaks are made, and small arms in Daghestan and at Tiflis, Nukha and
Sukhum-kaleh; silversmiths' work at Tiflis, Akhaltsikh and Kutais;
pottery at Elisavetpol and Shusha; leather shoe-making at Alexandropol,
Nukha, Elisavetpol, Shusha and Tiflis; saddlery at Sukhum-kaleh and
Ochemchiri on the Black Sea and at Temirkhan-shura in Daghestan; and
copper work at Derbent and Alexandropol. But industries of every
description were most seriously crippled by the spirit of turbulence and
disorder which manifested itself throughout Transcaucasia in the years
1904-1906, accentuated as they were further by the outbreak of the
long-rooted racial enmities between the Armenians and the Tatars,
especially at Baku in 1905.

_Commerce_.--The exports through the Black Sea ports of Batum, Poti and
Novo-rossiysk average