The difficulty, such as it is, might be obviated, were the masters of British merchantmen compelled by law to submit their ship's papers, on arrival and departure, to the British consuls at each port, who would then be placed on the same footing with the consuls of other countries, and be enabled to communicate much important statistical information to their Government, of the opportunity for acquiring and transmitting which they are now deprived. Our review of Russian commerce and industry would be more incomplete than it is, if we were to omit all notice of the vast mining wealth of that empire. But our limits, already nearly reached, do not admit of more than a passing reference. Suffice it, that in coal, both bituminous and anthracite, in iron and other metals, and salt, constituting the raw materials, Russia is rich enough for all her wants, and indeed supplies the great bulk of those wants within herself, with to spare in some of these products for her neighbours and other countries. Her mines are annually increasing in productiveness and number, as enterprise is extended and capital invested in them, and as domestic manufactures and improving agriculture increasingly absorb their produce. The treasure-yielding progress of her gold mines is one of the extraordinary events of the age. The existence of gold in Siberia was scarcely suspected till 1829. The first researches of adventuring individuals were attended with no success. Feodot Popoff, one of the earliest, succeeded at length in that year, when all others had abandoned the undertaking as hopeless, in discovering traces, and procuring some inconsiderable specimens, of gold--not in quantity, however, to repay the working; and the doubts before existing seemed confirmed as to the fruitlessness of further perseverance in the search. Major-General Kovalevsky, of the engineers of mines, having been appointed governor of Tomsk, renewed the attempt in 1830; and, at the close of that year, his indefatigable labours, and more methodical plan of operations, were rewarded with the discovery of a first considerable stratum of auriferous sands, which was designated Yégorievsky, (St George.) Adventurers flocked into the district forthwith, and in numbers, upon the widespreading news; and excellently did renewed labours recompense the zeal of the more fortunate; numerous were the discoveries of layers of golden sands. In one of these, last year, a massive piece of native gold, weighing 24-1/2 pounds Russian, (the Russian pound is about 1-1/2 oz. less than the English,) was discovered embedded in a fragment of quartz, and is now deposited in the museum of the School of Mines at St Petersburg. The yield of the Siberian mines has since been at the following rate of progression--omitting the intermediate years for brevity, although in every year there was an increase of quantity upon the preceding:--