44 SIBERIA IN EUROPE. CHAP. v. 



old windmill. Beyond the cultivated ground is the forest 

 clothing the hilly country stretching away north, the trees 

 gradually dwindling in size as far as the Arctic circle, beyond 

 which lies the mysterious " tundra." 



Our quarters in Ust-Zylma were two excellent rooms on 

 the second floor of the best house in the village, for which 

 we paid two roubles a month. No doubt we could have had 

 them for half the money if we had taken them for six 

 months. The house was built by M. Sideroff, the founder of 

 the Petchora Timber-trading Company, and was afterwards 

 sold to M. Boulegan. Our windows looked out across the 

 street on to the Petchora, which we calculated from two 

 rough trigonometrical observation* to be a mile and a half 

 wide. At Ust-Ussa, 200 miles higher up the great river, its 

 width is said to be nearly a mile. A little beyond the limits 

 of the village at each end, the flat land on the bank of the 

 river ceases, and the forest comes up to the edge of a cliff 

 of sand, earth, and pebbles, varying from 50 to 100 feet 

 high. This bank drops nearly perpendicularly on to the 

 mud and pebbles on the edge of the river. In some places 

 the pebbly strand was bare of snow, and we noticed pieces of 

 granite, ironstone, and limestone. Some of the latter was 

 full of fossil shells, and we found many pieces that looked 

 like madrepore and fossil coral. Soon after the high steep 

 bank of the river begins, the grand sweep which the Petchora 

 makes round the village ends, and the river stretches away 

 north-east for miles. The view from the top of the bank 

 looking up the wide white river, is very fine. The high banks, 

 too steep in most places for the snow to rest upon, and the 



