GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 18G8. 301 



caravans coming thither from all quarters to 

 buy and sell. The goods sold in the eighteen 

 caravansaries of the city, in 1867, amounted to 

 2,585,000 rubles ($1,938,750). This was ex- 

 clusive of the large quantities sent out from the 

 city by the merchants and artisans. 



The Russian Baron von Osten-Sacken, dur- 

 ing the year 1867, accompanied by a scientific 

 party, explored with great thoroughness the 

 Thian-Shan chain of mountains, and in 1868, 

 as a result of his labors, published a map of 

 the chain between Naryn and the Chinese 

 boundary, on a scale of five versts (about four 

 miles) to the inch, and comprising a territory 

 of about 12,000 square versts in extent ; he also 

 deposited in the museum at St. Petersburg a 

 collection of the mammals and birds of the re- 

 gion, and about 500 plants, mostly belonging 

 to the mountain flora, and full botanical de- 

 scriptions of the habitat of these, and other 

 plants of the Thian-Shan range. 



M. A. Krapotkin, a Russian officer in Ir- 

 kutsk, furnishes to Petermaun's MittJieilungen 

 full statistics of Siberia, mostly of 1862 and 

 1863, but these are so much later than any 

 thing heretofore received that they are of great 

 value. The area of Siberia, including Russian 

 Turkestan, added to it in 1866, is 5,315,786 

 square miles. Without this, it was 5,031,916 

 square miles. The population in 1862 and 

 1863, of the three governments into which it 

 was then divided, was : Irkutsk Government, 

 365,240, of whom 192,900 were males, and 

 172, 340 females; Tobolsk Government, 1,105,- 

 647, of whom 544,876 were males, and 560,771 

 females; the Yakutsk Government, 227,907, 

 of whom 116,671 were males, and 111,236 

 females. Total for the three governments, 

 1,698,794; of whom 853,447 were males, and 

 844,347 females. In the Irkutsk Government, 

 34,159 were inhabitants of towns, and 331,081 

 of the country; in Tobolsk, 82,923 were in- 

 habitants of towns and cities, and 1,022,724 of 

 the country; in Yakutsk, there were 6,891 

 only of the town population, and 221,016 of 

 the country. The mass of the population are, 

 at least nominally, connected with the Ortho- 

 dox Greek Church, its adherents numbering 

 1,492,583, or about of the entire population; 

 next in order are the dissenting sects of that 

 church, of whom there are 44,179: of the 

 Roman Catholics, there are 3,719; of Protes- 

 tants, 3,139; of the Armenian Church, 13; of 

 Jews, 871 ; of Mohammedans, 2,857; of Buddh- 

 ists, 15,794; of the followers of Schaman, 

 77,904, and of the Karaim, 8. The number of 

 births in 1863 was 73,080 ; of deaths the same 

 year, 53,654; and of marriages, 13,632. In 

 the Irkutsk Government, the crop of spring 

 wheat and grain was 2,932,227 bushels; of 

 fall-sown grain, 5,622,124; and of potatoes, 

 1,162,668 bushels. There were no returns of 

 these crops from the Tobolsk Government, and 

 that of Yakutsk yielded but about 150,000 

 bushels of grain, and a little more than 8,300 

 bushels of potatoes. 



The manufactures of Siberia are mostly 

 elementary and simple, consisting of tallow, 

 candles, soap, coarse cloths, cheap paper, oils, 

 brandy, tobacco and cigars, leather, iron, 

 bells, coarse glass, porcelain and pottery, salt, 

 lime, potash, chamois-leather, beer, molasses, 

 meal, spirits of turpentine, etc. About 6,600 

 men are employed in these manufactures, and 

 the annual product is a little more than five 

 million dollars. 



The nomadic tribes rear considerable herds 

 of cattle. The number of horses reported in 

 1863 was 990,878; of ^neat-cattle, 1,168,944; 

 of sheep, 1,055,529, besides 644 fine-wool 

 sheep; of swine, 295,010; of goats, 101,508; 

 of camels, 694 (evidently far below the truth) ; 

 of reindeer, 259,659; of sledge-dogs, 2,675. 



The Chinese are emigrating into that part 

 of Siberia which borders on the Amoor River. 

 In November, 1867, a census of them, taken by 

 the Russian authorities, showed that there 

 were 44 Chinese villages, having 1,274 houses, 

 and 10,583 inhabitants. Many thousands of 

 them have also emigrated into the provinces 

 of Russian Turkestan, and the policy of the 

 Russian Government is not now, as formerly, 

 to drive them out. 



The progress of Russia in Central Asia has 

 attracted much attention during the last three 

 or four years. In that period she has, partly 

 by diplomacy and partly by conquest, annexed 

 to her dominions the whole of Independent 

 Turkestan, a tract of nearly 800,000 square 

 miles in extent, and with a population of about 

 7,500,000 inhabitants, and she is still sweeping 

 eastward, with the evident design of absorbing 

 all the semi-independent chieftaincies of Soon- 

 garia, or, as it is now called, Chinese Turkestan. 

 Her past victories include the country of the 

 Kirghiz Tartars, the khanates of Khiva and 

 Khokand, and lastly, in the spring of 1868, the 

 khanate of Bokhara, and the cities of Bokhara 

 and Samarcand. The Emir of Bokhara, a fierce 

 and warlike chief, had been their most formi- 

 dable enemy ; but, in a pitched battle, in April, 

 1868, he was slain, and his entire khanate fell 

 into their hands. The Russians have a genius 

 for the government and control of 'these Tartar 

 tribes, and their sway has always been popular 

 with them. Russia's next step forward, wheth- 

 er it be southward, into Cabool, and to take pos- 

 session of Herat, or southeastward, to Ladakh, 

 or Leh, and thus to the Thibet frontier, will 

 bring her into immediate contact with the 

 British Government, in India; and her pres- 

 ence at either point must be a perpetual 

 menace to the British Government, whose hold 

 upon the affections of the tribes of Hindostan 

 has never been strong, and is weaker now than 

 in the past. Neither the Hindoo Coosh nor 

 the Himalaya Mountains will prove an effectual 

 barrier between nations whose views, policies, 

 and purposes are so diverse from each other. 



The Russian Government, not satisfied with 

 its progress toward the Chinese empire, from 

 the West, has also, by its diplomacy, acquired. 



