ASIA 



414 



ASIA 



distinct that passage from one to another is 

 difficult. 



So definite and isolated are these divisions 

 that it is easier to treat of their geography, 



PHYSICAL DIVISIONS 



This map makes it easy to understand the 

 description of the land surface of the vast con- 

 tinent. 



their population and their history separately 

 than to consider the continent as a whole. 

 These divisions, roughly speaking, may be 

 called (1) Northern Asia; (2) Inner Asia; 

 (3) Eastern Asia; (4) Southern Asia ; (5) South- 

 western Asia. 



Northern Asia. This is the vastest of these 

 regions, with 6,660,000 square miles an area 

 almost as great as that of Canada and the 

 United States combined. 



The Land. Northern Asia has great rivers, 

 the Ob, the Yenisei and the Lena, which in size 

 rank not far below those of North America; 

 and wide-stretching plains with which the 

 Mississippi Valley cannot compare in extent. 

 But the difference between Canada and the 

 United States and this Asiatic region, consist- 

 ing of Siberia, Russian Turkestan and Trans- 

 caspia, is incalculable. It is not simply a ques- 

 tion of development. Northern Asia will 

 never, in all probability, merit or repay even a 

 small part of the energy which has made the 

 United States and Canada what they are. In 

 the southern part of the region, in Transcaspia 

 and Russian Turkestan, lack of rainfall results 

 in extensive regions that are absolutely desert 

 in character, supporting only half-savage no- 

 mad tribes or an occasional group which makes 

 its home on an oasis. See NOMAD LIFE. 



To the northward, as the rains become more 

 abundant, occurs a grassy region where horses 

 and cattle find good pasturage, and still farther 



north there is sufficient moisture for the rais- 

 ing of temperate-region crops, especially the 

 grains. Through this region has been built the 

 Trans-Siberian Railroad (\\hich see), for this 

 section alone seems now capable o f high devel- 

 opment. Unbroken forests stretch from the 

 northern limit of this region, reaching almost 

 to the tundras of the Arctic region. The lower 

 parts of the rivers remain frozen long after 

 the ice has disappeared in the upper courses. 

 As a result, almost the whole northern coast 

 region is a flooded morass unhabitable and 

 impenetrable. This region, in which nothing 

 but a coarse moss grows, is the tundra belt. 

 The whole land presents an unspeakably dreary 

 and inhospitable appearance. 



Its Inhabitants. Even the stolid Asiatics, 

 who are accustomed to misery and to scanty 

 food, find most of Northern Asia too desolate 

 and too unproductive to afford them a dwelling 

 place, and the region as a whole is sparsely 

 populated. In the most northerly inhabited 

 belt are tribes belonging to the Mongol or 

 yellow race. Of these the Samoyads are best 

 known. They resemble the Lapps of Northern 

 Russia, and also the Eskimos of the American 

 continent. Russia, to which much of the region 

 belongs, has sent out many colonists, but these 

 have almost without exception settled in the 

 grain-growing country (see SIBERIA). The few 

 exceptions are the hunters and trappers who 

 gain their livelihood by selling the pelts of the 

 fur-bearing animals with which the great for- 

 ests abound. Neither the Russian immigrants, 

 the wandering tribes of Turkish stock, nor the 

 Mongols to the east have ever made any 

 attempt to develop the mineral resources of 

 the region, and it cannot be told whether these 

 are great or small. 



Centuries ago, before Russia itself was well 

 established, adventurers made their way from 

 that new empire into the vast plains to the 

 east, for the connection between the two conti- 

 nents is here very close. The scattered inhabi- 

 tants offered no resistance, nor did any of the 

 other European powers oppose, and from the 

 sixteenth century Russia continued to assert 

 its right to the territory more and more firmly. 



Inner Asia. This region, with an area of two 

 and one-half million square miles, includes 

 Tibet, Mongolia and Chinese, or East, Turke- 

 stan. Nearly all of this region is arid; much 

 of it is a desert having intensely cold winters, 

 very hot summers and terrific sandstorms. 

 About all the rain that falls comes in the 

 iorm of cloudbursts, Theoretically, China is 



