RKUION OF THE LOWER L10NA. 93 



reindeer leaves the forests to feed on the herbs and lichens 

 of the tundra, and many smaller animals migrate thither. 



''Thus during several months the tundra, presents an ani- 

 mated scene, in which man also [days his part ; for birds, 

 beasts, and fishes must all pay tribute to his various wants. 

 But as soon as the first frosts of September announce the 

 approach of winter, all animals, with but few exceptions, 

 haste to leave a region where the sources of life must soon 

 fail. The geese, ducks, and swan return in dense flocks to 

 the south.; the strand bird seeks in some lower latitude a 

 softer soil ; the water-fowl forsakes the bays and channels 

 which will soon be blocked by ice ; the reindeer once more 

 returns to the forest ; and in a short time nothing is left 

 that can induce man to remain. Soon a thick mantle of 

 snow covers the hardened earth, the frozen lake, the ice- 

 bound river, and conceals them all under its monotonous 

 pall, except where the furious northeast wind sweeps it away 

 and lays bare the naked rock." 



The following graphic description of the region of the 

 Lower Lena is from the pen of Mr. George Kennan, author 

 of " Tent Life in Siberia " :- 



" Underlying the great moss tundras which border the 

 Lena River north of Yakutsk, there is everywhere a thick 

 stratum of eternal frost, beginning in winter at the surface 

 of the earth, and in summer at a point twenty or thirty 

 inches below the surface, and extending to a depth of many 

 hundred feet. What scanty vegetation, therefore, the tundra 

 affords, roots itself and finds its nourishment in a thin layer 

 of unfrozen ground a mere veneering of arable soil resting 

 upon a substratum five or six hundred feet in depth of per- 

 manent and impenetrable ice. This foundation of ice is im- 

 pervious, of course, to water, and as the snow melts in sum- 

 mer the water completely saturates the soil to as great 

 a depth as it can penetrate, and, with the aid of the continuous 

 daylight of June and July, stimulates a dense luxuriant 

 growth of gray Arctic moss. This moss in course of time 

 covers the entire plain with a soft, yielding cushion, in which 



