The foundation of the whole Turkish law is laid in the Koran, or Mohammedan scriptures; and here the absolute power of the sovereign is distinctly pronounced, and the duty of passive submission to his will inculcated upon all, as a duty to God immediately rendered. THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE. The aspect of affairs in Europe gives the public a strong interest in measuring the forces and the energy of the great antagonist whose aggression has called forth the fleets and armies of England and France to battle after an unbroken peace of forty years. It has seldom happened to any nation to engage in hostilities with a foreign power whose real strength and resources are so imperfectly known. No other empire but that of Russia ever succeeded in keeping so vast a portion of the globe a secret and a mystery from the rest of mankind. We know that she possesses territories wider than the realms of Tamerlane; and that the troops under her banners are as countless as the hosts that followed Napoleon when he was the master of Europe. Russia, taking its whole extent, is by much the largest empire of which there is any record in the annals of the world; and vast as it is, it may be said to be compact and continuous, without the intervention of land belonging to any other power. In this great empire every variety of climate is to be found, and every vegetable production, from those of the climate of southern Europe to the icy regions of the north, where vegetation fails, and nature is for ever bound in unproductive fetters--may, in one district or another, be brought to maturity. Nor are the mineral riches less copious; for there is scarcely a valued product of the mine which may not be obtained in some part of Russia, and several of the most useful ones, in great abundance, and of excellent quality. We insert a correct table[3] of the population and extent of the empire. More than a hundred peoples, speaking a hundred different idioms, inhabit the surface of the empire. But almost all these peoples are scattered along its frontiers. The whole interior is inhabited by one sole race, that of the Russians proper. The Russian race alone consists of about 50,000,000 souls, whilst all the other tribes of the empire put together do not exceed 15,000,000. AREA AND POPULATION OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE.