The most important mineral resources of the region are the oil wells; here, in fact, around Batum, are situated some of the most important oil fields in the world.  Of manganese ore, an essential of the steel industry, the Caucasus furnishes half of the world’s supply, which is exported from the two ports of Poti and Batum.  Its mineral wealth seems to be practically unlimited, copper, zinc, iron, tin, and many other metals being found throughout the region, in most cases in exceedingly rich deposits.  The agricultural resources are not so important, especially from a military point of view, though vast quantities of sheep are raised in the highlands in the spring and summer, the flocks being driven down into the plains to the south in winter.

One of the outstanding features of Russian occupation is the great Georgian military road which has been built across the mountains of recent years and maintained by the Government.  Its engineering is masterly; here and there it passes close to or under vast overhanging lumps of mountainside.  Everywhere the greatest care has been taken of this most important military highway, Russia’s avenue into that country she coveted and fought for so long.  Beginning at Vladikavkaz, it runs through Balta, Lars, thence through the famous Gorge of Dariel, the “Circassian Gates,” the dark and awful defile between Europe and Asia.  The gorge is what the geologists call a “fault,” for it is not really a pass over the mountain chain, but a rent clear across it.  Seventy years ago it was almost impassable for avalanches or the sudden outbursts of pent-up glacial streams swept it from end to end, but the Russians have spent over $20,000,000 on it and made it safe.  In 1877, during the Russo-Turkish War, nearly all the troops and stores for carrying the war into Turkey and Asia came by this road.

Its importance has since been lessened to a certain degree, for there is now direct railway communication from Moscow to Baku, at one end of the Trans-Caucasian Railway, and therefore to Kars itself, via Tiflis; and equally from Batum to Kars at the other end to which military steamers can bring troops and supplies from Odessa and Novorossik in the Black Sea.

The most important city in this region is Tiflis, the “city of seventy languages.”  It may, indeed, be called the modern Babel.  As seen from the mountains, it lies at the bottom of a brown, treeless valley, between steep hills, on either side of the River Kura.

It is a point of great importance to modern Russia.  It forms, to begin with, the end of the great military road across the mountains which, in spite of the railways, is still the quickest way to Europe for an army as well as for travelers, and all the mails come over it by express coaches.  From Tiflis a railway runs to Kars, a strong frontier on the Persian frontier.