CULTURE OF CIRCUMPOL.\R ZONE — BOGORAS 471 



not spoil your dry-land boots, bocauso for overnight stoppin«i: you 

 roiild pick out some coiivt-nicMit dry littk' phuc. In extra cases you 

 could take off your boots and Avade tlirou<j:li the damp ^rass barefoot. 



4. If we take up now the botanical conditions, we lind them also 

 exhibitin<2: several variations. The tundra has a flora of its own. 

 The forest border is of course very different, and the sub-Arctic 

 dense forest is different from both. These three variations extena 

 throuirhout the whole Polar zone. The tundra has chiellv tiie lichens 

 and the genuine mosses, some tough sedge grass and patches of 

 undersizeil shrubs so rouirh that they can burn and serve as fuel 

 without any drying. The forest border has more bushes and even 

 a kind of scrub. Undersized trees with crooked trunks and boughs 

 out of shape form islands which on the south join gradually without 

 interruption. Of black wood species there are the birch, the alder, 

 the aspen, the poplar, and several kinds of willow. Birch and 

 willow, and of the conifers the cedar, assume a creeping form. The 

 birch and willow have also some drooping forms with branches 

 hanging down. 



Of the conifers there are the larch and the pine, the spruce, and 

 less frequently, the Siberian fir. The larch tree in the forest bonier 

 quite frequently gets a crooked trunk bent into a kind of spiral, the 

 ."-o-called, in lot-al Russian. KpenI) (khkx). The outei- hiyer of that 

 "' kren " has a nmch harder consistency and may therefore be applietl 

 for various products. 



The sub-Arctic forest has all the species mentioned above, but 

 they are more stately and the forest nmch more dense than on the 

 northern edge. 



As to the animal species, the reindeer feeds on lichen, which is 

 also called reindeer moss. The elk lives on the birch and the alder 

 groves, feeding on leaves and bark. The squirrel requires conifers, 

 since it feeds upon their cones. Even in the growths of the creej)- 

 ing cedar, which in English is called stone i)ine, squirrel and sable 

 fare (]uite well, the squirrel feeding on cedar cones and the sable 

 on squirrel. 



Eor nnin, the botanical conditions are of direct importance as 

 to construction materials for huts and the fuel for heating them. 

 The forest even on its border represents the best protection against 

 the snow tempests raging in winter. The flat tundra is open to 

 every winter tempest and travellers often are buried under the 

 snow, in the literal sense of the word, as I had occasion personally 

 to experience over and over again. We were bui-ied in drifted snow 

 for 24 and even 3G hours, after which we had to cut our way out- 

 ward through the snow hardened by the wind like some solid marble. 

 Dense forest of the more southeiii belt gives cover against the fiercest 

 storm, and the snow in the forest lies soft and downy like a feather- 



