From an agricultural point of view this locality, on account of its paucity of population and fertile soil, is regarded with high favour by the immigration authorities. In the town of Aktiubinsk itself there is a yearly market of cattle, corn, manufactures and agricultural implements. This as a rule returns a quarter of a million roubles. Now that the railway has been completed and opened to passenger and commercial traffic, it is expected that it will give an immediate impetus to this region and that it will be possible to carry out a more careful examination of its mining resources, of which at the present time there are only indications. Copper has been traced along the Burt, Burl, Khabd and Kutchuk Sai rivers; deposits of coal have been found near the Maloi Khabd, Teress Butak and Yakshi Kargach rivers; iron has been located by the Burt river and naphtha on the Djus river; while there is reason to believe that gold exists in the vicinity. On the second section, the line derives its water from springs in the Djaksi mountains, the basin of the Kuljur river, the Khoja and Tchelkar lakes. It abounds with Kirghiz villages but minerals do not play an important part in it. A few seams of coal are believed to exist in the ravine of the Alabass stream; and there are lodestone mines in the Djaman mountains and in the Kin Asu defile. Cattle-farming is more remunerative to the local settlers than cereal production; as a consequence there is very little cultivation. The district, which is 160 versts in length, occupies: _Area._ _Population._ 127,300 sq. versts 85,000 On the third section, which extends from the sands of Bolshiye Barsuki to Kazalinsk covering an area of 285 versts, the water-supply is obtained at first from shallow surface wells; but 45 versts from Kazalinsk the railway enters the Syr Daria valley, where water is abundant. The southern areas of this belt alone possess any commercial importance, owing to Kirghiz from the northern part of the Irgiz district who, to the number of some 10,000 _kibitkas_, winter there. The northern part is largely the continuation of a sparse steppe. The Kazalinsk district, beyond which the Orenburg-Tashkent railway enters Turkestan, is one of the least important divisions of the Syr Daria province. It embraces: _Area._ _Population._ 59,550 sq. versts 140,598