90 SIBERIA. 



I'rom the goveniinerits, suiroring liom u hick ot land, all ilioir Mirjjlu.- jioj/uluiioii, JJiii if it be 

 remembered that alrnust all Siberia lies in the same latitude with the expanse of Britisli 

 North America iinsuitcd to agiucultiire, and only its southern borderlands are in the same 

 latitude with the northern borders of the United states; if it be further remembered what 

 arc the climatic and, in general, the natural conditions of the greater part of Siberia, it will 

 be clear that only a part of Siberia is destined by nature for civilized life. The vast regions 

 of the iiorili of Siberia are doomed for all lime to remain entirely, or almost entirely, 

 uninhabited and inaccessible to cultivation. Xor is this all; even where this cultivation 

 already exists along the rivers at the present time or may develop in the more or less 

 near Jiiture, the interrivcrine sjiaces present vast swamps, tundras or mountainous 

 regions, absolutely unadaptcd to cultivation. Such a character is possessed by the central 

 part of the Tobolsk and the northern part of the Tomsk governments, almost the whole of 

 the Amour country, and the same may be said of the three steppe territories where but 

 insignificant patches are suitable for agiiculture, and all the remainder presents an expanse 

 of salt marsh, probably doomed forever to remain the scene of Kirghiz nomad life. 



The proper arable part of Siberia embraces at the present time four governments of 

 the original Siberia, western and eastern, with the exception, however, of their northern 

 regions, namely, in the government of Tobolsk, the Berezov and Surgut districts, and the north- 

 ern halves of those of Tobolsk, Tourinsk and Tarsk; i'rom Tomsk must be excluded the Xarymsk 

 country; from the government of the Yenisei, the Yeniseisk district; in Irkutsk the districts 

 of Kirensk and Verkholensk. Besides this, almost the whole of Transbaikalia has a culti- 

 vable character, and the banks of the Amour and the Ussuri in the far east, although here 

 as will be scon, cultivation exists rather in the future than in the present. Finally, in the 

 steppe territories agriculture exists and is capable of development only in a few parts of the 

 following districts: Kokchetavsk, Atbasarsk and Petropavlovsk in the Akmolinsk territory and 

 in Semlpalatinsk and Pavlodar in that of Semipalatinsk. Furthermore, are to be named the 

 regions of artificial irrigation in the Zaisan district of the latter territory and in the foot- 

 hill tracts of the territory of Scmirctchensk. 



Next, the whole north, namely, the above enumerated districts of the four govern- 

 ments of original Siberia, the whole Yakutsk territory, with the exception of the insignifi- 

 cant riverine zones, Kamchatka and the littoral of the Okhotsk Sea; all this consists of 

 millions of square versts of tundras ami wildwoods growing on a swampy soil. The 

 llussian population is here confined to the officials of the local government, and to mer- 

 chants and their agents, engaged in barter with the native nomads. The remaining popu- 

 lation, the density of which moreover does not exceed three, and in the tenitory of Yakutsk 

 even less than one inhabitant per square mile, consists of native Samoyeds, Ostiaks, Tun- 

 guz, Yakutsk, Kamchadals and others, who live exclusively by hunting and fishing. The 

 produce of these industries partly serves for their own consumption, but mainly goes in bar- 

 ter for bread and other provisions furnished by the Russian traders. Between this north- 

 ern, absolutely uncivilized portion of Siberia and its purely agricultural regions stretches 

 as it w'ere a zone of a transitional character. To it belong, in the government of To- 

 bolsk, the southern half of the Turinsk and the central part of the Tobolsk district, as also 



