10 ASIA 



regions. A few berries are all that man can gather, 

 and cultivation is out of the question. Hunting and 

 fishing are the primary occupations, but a most useful 

 asset is found in the reindeer, whose every part and 

 product becomes precious, while it supports itself on what 

 lichens and mosses the tundra can supply. Man, there- 

 fore, is obliged to follow his wild herds, which he could 

 not feed in a permanent and circumscribed place of 

 abode. 



The tundra extends to the higher lands or plateaus 

 which stretch southward, such as those of Siverma, 

 Yangkan, Verkhoyansk, Kolyma, and Anadyr, which 

 recall the fjelds of Scandinavia. 



West Siberia. Between the Urals and the Yenissei, 

 north of the fifty-fifth parallel, the land is very low and 

 flat, rising less than 100 feet in about 600 miles. It is 

 regularly flooded by the large rivers Ob and Irtish and 

 their tributaries, which have built high banks along their 

 courses and thus stopped the natural drainage of the 

 surface waters, so that it is covered by vast and im- 

 passable swamps, which remain frozen for six months 

 of the year. 



The climate is uniformly cold and damp, though the 

 rainfall remains under twenty inches ; mists and fogs are 

 frequent, and snow lies on the ground till late in spring. 

 Such a region is naturally the battle-ground between 

 the swamp vegetation and the forest. 



The tundra which surrounds the vast estuaries of the 

 Ob and Tas gradually passes into morasses of a more tem- 

 perate type, not unlike those of Ireland and Scotland, and 

 consisting of peat-mosses. These freely alternate with 

 swamps of reeds, rushes, and sedges, especially towards 

 the south. The forest is restricted to the best-drained 

 rising grounds generally gentle swellings, and the banks 



