Mountains are a swampy plateau, where the rivers flowing to the N. Dviua or to the Pethora take their rise in common marshes; so that on the Mylva portage boats have to be dragged a distance of only 3 m. to be transported from one system to the other.
Permian sandstones and cupriferous slates cover most of the territory; only a few patches of Jurassic clays overlie them; in the east, in the Ural parmas, coal-bearing Carboniferous, Devonian and Silurian slates and limestones appear, wrapping the crystalline slates of the main ridge. Vast layers of boulder clay and Lacustrine deposits overlie the whole. Rock-salt and salt springs, iron ore, millstones and grindstones are the chief mineral products; but mining is in its infancy.
The river Sukhona, which rises in the south-west and flows north-east, is navigable for 375 m. After its confluence with the Yug (390 m. long), which flows from the south, it becomes the N. Dvina, which proceeds north-west, and receives the Vychegda, 740 m. long and navigable for 570 m., though it passes through a nearly uninhabited region. The Luza, a tributary of the Yug, is also navigated for more than 250 m. The Pechora, which flows through eastern Vologda, is an artery for the export of corn and the import of fish. The Pinega, the Mezeñ and the Vaga, all belonging to the Arctic basin, rise in northern Vologda. In the south-west the Sukhona is connected by means of Lake Kubina and the canal of Alexander von Württemberg with the upper Volga. Numberless smaller lakes occur, and marshes cover a considerable part of the surface.
The climate is severe, the average yearly temperature being 36° F. at Vologda (Jan., 10°.7; July, 63°.5) and 32°.5 at Ust-Sysolsk (Jan., 4°.8; July, 61°.7).
The flora and the physical aspects vary greatly as the traveller moves north-east down the Sukhona and up the Vychegda, towards the parmas of the Pechora. In the south-west the forests are cleared, and the dry slopes of the hills have been converted into fields and meadows; the population is relatively dense, and nearly one-quarter of the area is under crops. There is a surplus of grain, which is used for distilleries, and apples are extensively cultivated. The flora is middle-Russian. Farther north-east the climate grows more severe; but still, until the Dvina is reached, corn succeeds well, and there is no lack of excellent meadows on the river-terraces. Flax is cultivated for export; but only 4% of the area is tilled, the remainder being covered with thick fir forests with occasional groups of deciduous trees (birch, aspen, elder). At about 46° E. the larch appears and soon supersedes the fir. Several plants unknown in western Russia make their appearance (Silene tartarica, Anthyllis vulneraria, Euphorbia palustris, Filago arvensis, Lycopodium complanatum, Sanguisorba officinalis. The Veratrum is especially characteristic; it sometimes encroaches on the meadows to such an extent as to compel their abandonment. The region of the upper Mezeñ (the Udora) again has a distinctive character. The winter is so protracted, and the snowfall so copious, that the Syryenians are sometimes compelled to clear away the snow from their barley-fields. But the summer is so hot (a mean of 54° for the three summer months) that barley ripens within forty days after being sown. The Timan plateaus are a marked boundary for the middle-Russian flora. Those to the east of them are uninhabitable; even on the banks of the rivers the climate is so severe, especially on account of the icy northern winds, that rye and barley are mostly grown only in orchards. The whole is covered with quite impenetrable forests, growing on a soil saturated with water. Mosquitoes swarm in the forests; birds are rare. The Siberian cedar begins and the lime tree disappears. Fir, cedar, pine and larch compose the forests, with birch and aspen on their outskirts. Hunting is the chief occupation of the Syryenian inhabitants.
The population was estimated in 1906 at 1,517,500, of whom 57,407 lived in towns; 90% were Great Russians and 8.4% Syryenians (q.v.). The government is divided into ten districts, the chief towns of which are Vologda, Gryazovets, Kadnikov, Nikolsk, Solvychegodsk, Totma or Totyma, Ustyug Velikiy, Ust-Sysolsk, Velsk and Yarensk. Agriculture thrives in the three south-western districts. Live-stock breeding occupies considerable numbers of people. A little salt is raised, and there are a few ironworks, but manufacturing industries are in their infancy; the chief branch is the weaving of linen in the villages. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)
VOLOGDA, a town of Russia, capital of the government of the same name, situated in its south-western corner on the river Vologda, above its confluence with the navigable Sukhona, 127 m. by rail N. of Yaroslavl. Pop. (1881) 17,025; (1897) 27,822. It is an old town, having many ancient churches, including one which dates from the 12th century, and the cathedral, founded in 1568. Vologda is a considerable commercial centre—flax, linseed, oats, hemp, butter and eggs being exported to both St Petersburg and Archangel. It has distilleries, tanneries, and oil, soap, tobacco, candle and fur-dressing works.
Vologda existed as a trading town as early as the 12th century. It was a colony of Novgorod, and was founded in 1147, and carried on a brisk trade in flax, tallow, furs, corn, leather and manufactured goods. In 1273 it was plundered by the prince of Tver in alliance with the Tatars, but soon recovered. Moscow disputed its possession with Novgorod until the 15th century; the Moscow princes intrigued to find support amidst the poorer inhabitants against the richer Novgorod merchants, and four successive times Vologda had to fight against its metropolis. It was definitely annexed to Moscow in 1447. When Archangel was founded, and opened for foreign trade in 1553, Vologda became the chief depot for goods exported through that channel. Polish bands plundered it in 1613, and the plague of 1648 devastated it, but it maintained its commercial importance until the foundation of St Petersburg, when Russian foreign trade took another channel.
VOLSCI, an ancient Italian people, well known in the history of the first century of the Roman Republic. They then inhabited the partly hilly, partly marshy district of the S. of Latium, bounded by the Aurunci and Samnites on the S., the Hernici on the E., and stretching roughly from Norba and Cora in the N. to Antium in the S. They were among the most dangerous enemies of Rome, and frequently allied with the Aequi, whereas the Hernici from 486 B.C. onwards were the allies of Rome. In the Volscian territory lay the little town of Velitrae (Velletri), the birthplace of Augustus. From this town we have a very interesting though brief inscription dating probably from early in the 3rd century B.C.; it is cut upon a small bronze plate (now in the Naples Museum), which must have once been fixed to some votive object, dedicated to the god Declunus (or the goddess Decluna).
The language of this inscription is clear enough to show the very marked peculiarities which rank it close beside the language of the Iguvine Tables (see Iguvium). It shows on the one hand the labialization of the original velar q (Volscian pis = Latin quis), and on the other hand it palatalizes the guttural c before a following i (Volscian façia = Latin faciat). Like Umbrian also, but unlike Latin and Oscan, it has degraded all the diphthongs into simple vowels (Volscian se parallel to Oscan svai; Volscian deue, Old Latin and Oscan deiuai or deiuoi). This phenomenon of what might have been taken for a piece of Umbrian text appearing in a district remote from Umbria and hemmed in by Latins on the north and Oscan-speaking Samnites on the south is a most curious feature in the geographical distribution of the Italic dialects, and is clearly the result of some complex historical movements.
In seeking for an explanation we may perhaps trust, at least in part, the evidence of the Ethnicon itself. The name Volsci belongs to what may be called the -CO- group of tribal names in the centre, and mainly on the west coast, of Italy, all of whom were subdued by the Romani before the end of the 4th century B.C.; and many of whom were conquered by the Samnites about a century or more earlier. They are, from south to north, Osci, Aurunci, Hernici, Marruci, Falisci; with these were no doubt associated the original inhabitants of Aricia and of Sidici-num, of Vescia among the Aurunci, and of Labici close to Hernican territory. The same formative element appears in the adjective Mons Massicus, and the names Glanica and Marica belonging to the Auruncan district, with Graviscae in south Etruria, and a few other names in central Italy (see “I due strati nella popolazione Indo-Europea dell' Italia Antica,” in the Atti del Congresso Internazionale di Scienze Storiche, Rome, 1903, p. 17). With these names must clearly be judged the forms Tusci and Etrusci, although these forms must not be regarded as anything but the names given to the Etruscans by the folk among whom they settled. Now the historical fortune of these tribes is reflected in several of their names (see Sabini). The Samnite and Roman conquerors tended to impose the form of their own Ethnicon, namely the suffix -NO-, upon
