HISTORICAL SKETCn. 1 



SIBERIA. 



AND THE 



GREAT SIBERIAN RAILWAY. 



CHAPTER I. 

 Historical Sketch. 



Geographical and administrative division of Siberia; liistorical review of its occupation, explo- 

 ration and settlement; its subdivision into five large geographical regions; its administrative 

 division; the first contact of the Russians with Siberia by means of the Stroganovs; annexation 

 of a part of Siberia to Russia at the end of the sixteenth century; gradual occupation by the 

 Russians of the v^-hole of Siberia in the course of the seventeenth century; first attempts at 

 navigating the Arctic Ocean, and the Behring and Okhotsk seas; appearance of the Russians 

 upon the Amour; struggle with China for the possession of the Littoral-Amour country; the 

 Xerchinsk treaty ; beginning of permanent colonization of Siberia at the end of the seventeenth, 

 and its gradual realization during the eighteenth century; establishment of frontier defense 

 lines called forth by the necessity of protecting colonization; development of colonization 

 under the shelter of these lines; scientific explorations by sea and land in Siberia in the 

 eighteenth century; surrender of Russo- American possessions to the Government of the 

 United States; acquisition of Sakhalin and surrender of the Kuril Islands to Japan; settlement 

 and exploration of Siberia in the first half of the nineteenth century; annaxation of the Amour 

 tract in the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century; scientific explorations in 

 the Amour Littoral country; gradual occupation of the Kirghiz steppe country in the course 

 of the nineteenth century; annexation to Russia of the country of Semirechinsk and Zailisk 

 in the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century; significance and consequence 

 of this fact so important to the, history of Asiatic Russia; colonization of Siberia in the 

 second half of the nineteenth century, and the position of the colonization question at the 

 present time; recognition of the necessity of building a great railway through Siberia; visit to 

 Siberia of the Tsarevich; and the foundation of the Siberian Railway Committee. 



UNDER the name Siberia, in the most widely accepted meaning of the word, are understood 

 all Russia's Asiatic possessions, with the exception of Transcaucasia, the Transcaspian 

 territory and the Turkestan governor - generalship. Accordingly the Ural chain and river 

 would appear to be the natural boundary between European Russia and Siberia. But the 

 Ural chain, colossal in its linear extension, but not attaining any elevation and traversable 

 almost imperceptibly in its lowest passes, with its mineral wealth scattered chiefly over its 

 eastern slope, was never like other great mountain chains on the earth's surface, a separa- 

 ting banler in the etnographical and economical life of the peoples, but on the contrary, from 

 the time of the occupation of Siberia by the Russians, proved as it were, a line uniting Euro- 

 pean and Asiatic Russia. 



The Transural districts of the Perm govornnient, in which the mineral wealth of 

 the Urals is most abundant, and which ai'c the lai'gest furnishers of grain to the Ural mining 

 population, have long been reckoned not to Siberia but to European Russia. In like manner 



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