426 



NATURE 



[July 26, 191 7 



a considerable advance in the investigation of 

 this difficult subject. If we express the wind in 

 terms of its two components, W. to E. and S. to 

 N. , the probable error of a forecast for each com- 

 ponent is perhaps about ten miles an hour, and 

 there is not much prospect of improving- this ; 

 the estimate is for England and the Continent, but 

 further south the conditions are much better. 



I do not wish to emphasise the difficulties which 

 lie in the way of regular air services, but they are 

 there, and the first step towards overcoming them 

 is to admit their existence. W. H. Dines. 



NORTH-EAST SIBERIA A 



'T'HIS is a charming book of travel on a very 



-*- interesting but seldom visited country — the 



far north-east of Siberia. One has to travel for 



changed since. The post reaches this miserable 

 hamlet only once every four months. For three 

 or four months, before the Kolyma breaks its ice 

 at the end of May, and fishing can be resumed in 

 June, the population lives in a state of semi- 

 starvation. " By the end of March all the store 

 of fish is consumed, and the inhabitants begin 

 to eat the food usually given to dogs, such as fish- 

 bones, entrails, and half-decayed fish." The last 

 three or four months, before a fresh supply of 

 provisions is brought by the boats coming from 

 the south, most of the inhabitants have no salt 

 and no flour, and are compelled to eat the fish 

 raw, because cooked fish without salt seems to 

 be most unpalatable. Under these conditions the* 

 physical and mental deterioration of the popula- 

 tion is, of course, unavoidable. 



In this spot the author remained four years, 



Chukchees. Fiom "In Far North-East Siberia." 



a month from Verkhoyansk, "the pole of cold," 

 situated on the Upper Yana River, to reach 

 Sredne-Kolymsk, "the queen of the country, 

 consisting of twenty or thirty little flat-roofed log- 

 huts scattered about on the left bank of the 

 Kolyma." In this "town" the author was in- 

 terned, by the Ministry of the Interior, in com- 

 pany with a dozen comrade students involved in 

 "political disorders," and he stayed there four 

 years. 



That was thirty years ago; but nothing has 



1 "In Far North-East Siberia." By I. W. Shklov.sky ("Dioneo"). 

 Translated bv L. Edwards and Z. ShkIov.sky. Pp. vii + 264. (London : 

 Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1916.) Price 8j. M. net. 



NO. 2zLQI. VOL. Qol 



and he devotes interesting pages to a good-natured 

 description of how the little community of 

 student-exiles constructed for themselves un- 

 burned-brick stoves (instead of the usual Yakute 

 open hearth in the midst of the hut), and made 

 their own provisions of fish and frozen cream for 

 the winter, as well as candles from reindeer-fat 

 for the long arctic night ; all this work being done 

 "amidst interminable metaphysical discussions." 

 These pages have all the freshness of youth. 



Towards the end of his internment at Sredne- 

 Kolymsk the author obtained permission to make 

 a journey to Nijne-Kolymsk, at the mouth of the 



