1 INTRODUCTION.! XXI] I 



Kusnetsk district and other parts of Siberia, together with its inexhaustible forests 

 of cedars and other valuable trees mainly belonging to the fir fauiily. give abundant 

 security for the development of every possible kind of works and manufactories, 

 steamers and railways. 



At the present time the whole manufacturing industry of Siberia, apart from 

 the extraction of gold, is confined to a few undertakings for the obtaining of goods, 

 such as iron, leather, glass, spirit, salt, cloth and vegetable oils, destined almost ex- 

 clusively for local consumption and for a limited export to the Kirghiz steppes and 

 to European Russia. Hither, too, are carried by way of Siberia tea and other Chinese 

 wares, and thence by the water systems of the Volga and Kama, the Tobol and the Obi. 

 return goods of the most various description, beginning with manufactures of many 

 kinds, and ending mth spices. The Ministry of Finance desiring to assist in the 

 spread of trustworthy information about Siberia has undertaken the publication of a 

 special description of this vast territory of the Empire for the World Columbian's 

 Exposition. 



VII. The Central Asiatic IIegion. 



This region bordering oh Siberia on the north-east, touching the southern parts 

 of the governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk, on the north-west, the eastern portion of 

 European Eussia, namely Orenburg and Ufa, is bounded on the east by the govern- 

 ment of Astrakhan and the Caspian Sea, on the south-west by Persia, on .the south 

 by Afghanistan and on the south-east by China, coming also into contact in the 

 south with Khiva and Bokhara. This region includes the Kirghiz steppes and the 

 comparatively recently annexed Central Asiatic dominions, possessing an Asiatic 

 population among whom emigrants from purely Russian districts have latterly com- 

 menced colonising, thus forming in many places an unbroken Russian population. 

 Among such localities must be reckoned beginning from the north and east, the terri- 

 tories of Semipalatinsk (chief town. Semipalatinsk), Seniiretchinsk (chief town, Vierny), 

 Akmolinsk (chief towns, Omsk and Akmolinsk), Turgaisk (chief town, Turgai), Uralsk 

 (chief town, Uralsk), Samarkand, (chief town, Samarkand), Fergan (chief town. ^lar- 

 gellan), Transcaspian, (chief town, Askhabad) and Syr-Daria (chief towns, Tashkend 

 and Petro-Alexandrovskj. The area is about 3,080,000 square versts or 63,637 square 

 geographical miles ; the population, about six millions. 



A considerable part of the inhabitants are nomads, Kirghiz and Turkmen, 

 living still in a pastoral condition asking for almost nothing from manufacturing- 

 industry and providing it on their part only with wool, tallow, felt, and leather. 

 But in the warm valleys of the southern parts of the region live tribes having fixed 

 habitations, of the Bokharian type, actively occupied with agriculture and producing 

 not only the grain and fruits of temperate countries, but also rice, cotton, every 

 description of fruit, and together with the Russian settlers already representing a 

 demand for many kinds of manufactures, and furnishing in their turn a mass of 

 materials for manufacture, beginning with the products of ores and ending with 

 cotton and wine. There can be no doubt but that the Russian dominion in these 

 countries is tending to their rapid economical growth, and that the industry here 

 springing up is developing very fast, being greatly assisted by the Transcaspian 



