Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/783

ODESSA 725 easy communication with the lower parts of both rivers. The limans or lagoons of Haji-bey and Kuyalnik, which penetrate far inland from the neighbourhood of Odessa, are separated from the sea by flat sandy isthmuses. The bay of Odessa, which has an area of 14 square miles and a depth of 30 feet, with a soft bottom, is a dangerous anchorage on account of its exposure to easterly winds. The ships lie, therefore, in two harbours, both protected by moles, the "quarantine harbour," from 4 to 21 feet deep, and the so-called "practical harbour," for coasting vessels, with a maximum depth of 11 feet. A new one, 1100 yards long and 660 yards wide, Avas constructed a few years ago. The harbours freeze for a few days in winter, as also does the bay itself occasionally, navigation being interrupted every year for an average of sixteen days. Odessa experiences the influence of the continental climate of the neighbouring steppes ; its winters are cold (the average temperature for January being 23 2, and the isotherm for the entire season that of Konigsberg), its summers are hot (72 8 in July), and the yearly average Plan of Odessa. temperature is 48 5. The rainfall is scanty (ninety-two rainy days, with 14 inches of rain per annum); and one of the plagues of the city is the chalky dust, which is raised in clouds by the strong winds to which it is exposed. The city is built on a terrace from 100 to 150 feet in height, which descends by steep crags to the sea, and on the other side is continuous with the level of the steppe, which is covered with a layer of " black earth " ; the subsoil consists of clay, gravel, and a soft Tertiary sandstone, which is used for building, but readily disintegrates under atmospheric agencies. Catacombs whence this sandstone has been taken extend underneath the town and the suburbs, not without some danger to the buildings. The water-supply is inade quate. Drinking-water was formerly shipped from the Crimea, and the poorer classes had to supply themselves from cisterns and bad wells. An aqueduct, 27 miles long, now brings water from Mayaki on the Dniester. The general aspect of Odessa is that of a wealthy west- European city. Its chief embankment, bordered with tall and handsome houses, forms a fine promenade ; a superb flight of steps descends to the sea from its central square, which is adorned with a statue of Eichelieu. The central parts of the city have broad streets and squares, bordered with fine buildings and mansions in the Italian style, and with good shops. But even on the best streets poor houses surrounded with open yards occur side by side with richly- decorated palaces ; and in close association with elegant carriages and rich dresses one sees the open car of the peasant and the dirty dress of the Jew or the Bulgarian. The cathedral, finished in 1849, can accommodate 5000 persons ; it contains the tomb of Count Worontzoff, a former governor-general, who contributed much towards the de velopment and embellishment of the city. The " Palais Royal," with its parterre and fountains, and the spacious public park are fine pleasure-grounds, whilst in the ravines that descend to the sea the dirty houses of the poorer classes are massed. The shore is occupied by immense granaries, some of which look like palaces, and large storehouses take up a broad space in the west of the city. Odessa, which has a circumference of 6 miles, consists of the city proper, containing the old fort (now a quarantine establishment) and surrounded by a boulevard, where was formerly a wall marking the limits of the free port, of the suburbs Novaya and Peresyp, extending northward along the lower shore of the bay, and of Moldavanka to the south-west. A number of villas and cottages surround the city ; the German colonies Liebenthal and Lustdorf are bathing-places. Odessa is the real capital, intellectual and commercial, of the so-called Novorossia, which includes the governments of Bessarabia and Kherson. In the official subdivision of Russia it is only the chief town of the district of the same name in the government of Kherson. It constitutes at the same time an independent "muni cipal district" or captaincy (yradonachalstw which covers 182 square miles and includes a dozen villages, some of which have from 2000 to 3000 inhabitants. Odessa, like St Petersburg and Moscow, received in 1863 a new municipal constitution, with an elective mayor, municipal assembly, and executive council. It is also the chief town of the Novorossian educational district, and has a university, which replaced Richelieu Lyceum in 1865, and now has about 400 students. The young scientific society at the university is very active in investigating the natural history of southern Russia and of the Black Sea, and has already published some valuable Transactions. There are also an historical society with a museum containing rich collections from the Hellenic, Genoese, Venetian, and Mongolo-Tatar periods of the history of the Black Sea coast, a society of agriculture, a public library, and many educational institutions. The population of Odessa is rapidly increasing. In 1814, twenty years after its foundation, it had 25,000 inhabitants ; this figure steadily grew in succeeding years, Worontzoff allowing all sorts of people, runaway serfs included, to settle in the steppes of Bess arabia and Kherson, while at the same time the privileges of a free port, granted in 1817 and abolished only in 1857, attracted great numbers of merchants of all nationalities. In 1850 Odessa had 100,000 inhabitants, 185,000 in 1873, and at present (1884) the number exceeds 225, 000. Of these the great majority are Great Russians and Little Russians ; but there are also large numbers of Jews (67,000, exclusive of Karaites, against 50,000 in 1873), as well as of Italians, Greeks, Germans, and French (to which nation alities the chief merchants belong), as also of Roumanians, Ser vians, Bulgarians, Tatars, Armenians, Lazes, Georgians, &c. Thesu nationalities do not live in perfect harmony, and the continual commercial antagonism between the Greeks and the Jews often leads to scenes of disorder. A numerous floating population ot labourers, attracted at certain periods by pressing work in the port, and afterwards left unemployed owing to the enormous fluctuations in the corn trade, is one of the features of Odessa. 1 is estimated that there are no less than 35,000 people living irom hand to mouth in the utmost misery, partly in the extensive labyrinth of the catacombs beneath the city. rapidly within the last twenty years, but tneir aggregate piuuuc- tion (in the gradonachalstro of Odessa) does not exceed 20,000,00 roubles (about 2,000,000). To this total the principal items are contributed by the steam flour-mills (about 650,000 in 1879), the manufacture of tobacco (200,000) and of machinery (200,000), after which come tanneries, soap-works, chemical-works, biscuit-