22 SIUEKIA. 



(' II A I'Ti'.I! II. 



Geographical Review of Siberia. 



If li;is alrojidy liccii .sliowii (liat SitKuia may Ik' iliviilod iiitu five component purls each 

 (1 wliirli, ill virtue not only of tin' vastnoss of its area, l»nt also from the difference of its 

 Manual coMililions, (»f tlio coiii|Mi,silinii of its population ami of its historical development, 

 slMMild l)c (•(iMsidcrod separately. The present review commences with those two portions 

 which aiv known separately as Western and Eastern Siberia, and together as Siberia pro- 

 per, In lilt' limited sense of the word. 



Western Siberia. 



Its component parts: the Altai slopes and the western Siberian lowlands; geographical 

 and iirographical review of the Altai slopes; the western Siberian lowlands, their hydrography 

 and divisit)n into three zones or bands; the cultivated agricultural, the forest and the polar- 

 tundrys (frozen marshes); climatic conditions of those zones; the flora of the Avestern Siberian 

 valley and of the Altai slopes; the character of the fauna of Western Siberia; its population 

 and its ethnograpliical composition and emigration; the distribution of domestic animals. 



WES'J'KKN Siberia, in the above sense of the tei'm, is in its administrative aspect composed 

 of the two governments, Tobolsk and Tomsk, and from a geographical point of view it 

 occupies the greater portion, that is, 68 per cent, of the basin of the river Obi, or an area of 

 41,500 scpiare geographical miles, that is, more than two-iiftlis of the area of the whole of 

 European Russia and four times that of Germany. 



With the exception of its north-western limits, where the low mountain chain of the 

 Urals, from the sources of the river Kara to the northern extremity of the governments of 

 Perm, form a boundary between Western Siberia on the one hand and the government of Volog- 

 da and Archangel on the other, and its entire south-eastern corner composed of the vast high- 

 lands of the Altai, the whole of Western Siberia presents a vast plain, very slightly elevated 

 above the level of the Xortiiern Ocean and plentifully watered by the numerous tributaries 

 of the two immense branches of the vast system of the Obi, the rivers Irtysh and Obi. 



The entire south-eastern corner of Western Siberia is occupied by the Altai highlands 

 and lowlands forming the Altai IMininur Kesrion. the whole of which, to the extent of over 



