At
Yurburg the Niemen enters East Prussia on its way to the Baltic.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XLII
THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF RUSSIAN POLAND
It is in the southern part of Russian Poland, among the foothills
of the Carpathians, that the armies come into possession of its
mineral resources, a fact which will have some influence on the
German military movements in this region. Up in the Kielce hills
copper has been mined for 400 years, though the value of these
mines has decreased on account of the much greater quantity found
in America. A hundred years ago the Kielce mines produced nearly
4,000 tons of copper a year. Brown iron ore is also found here
in deposits 40 per cent pure, while there are also veins of zinc
sometimes 50 feet thick, yielding ore of 25 per cent purity. Sulphur,
one of the ingredients for the manufacture of explosives, is found
at Czarkowa in the district of Pinczow. In the southwest, in Bedzin
and Olkuz, there are coal deposits about 200 square miles in area.
In the southern districts wheat is also grown in some abundance.
The military value of this country is further enhanced by political
conditions. Like the greater part of Galicia to the southward, it
is peopled by the Poles, who form one of the important branches
of the great Slavic family. At one time Poland was a kingdom whose
territory and possessions spread from the Carpathians up to the
Baltic and far into the center of Russia, ruling its subject peoples
with quite as much rigor as the Poles have themselves been ruled
by Russia and Germany.
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