514 FROM NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR 



In the Altai, one literally walks upon silver and gold; for aurif- 

 erous silver -ore as well as lead, copper, and iron intersect the 

 mountains in veins, more or less rich, but usually worth working; 

 and the rivers flowing from them carry down golden sand. A 

 stratum of coal, whose extent has not yet been determined, but in 

 which a depth of seven or eight yards has been proved in various 

 places, underlies such an extensive tract, that, judging from the 

 composition of the exposed masses of rock, one is justified in con- 

 cluding that the whole northern portion of the estate stands above a 

 great coal-basin. 86 And yet the real wealth of the estate of the 

 Altai lies, not in its subterranean treasures, but in its rich black 

 soil, which spreads over mountain slopes and plains, and is swept 

 together in river-basins and hollows, so that it covers them to the 

 depth of a yard and a half. Beautiful, often grand, mountain 

 districts alternate with pleasing hilly tracts of arable land, and 

 gently -undulating plains, which the farmer prefers above all else, 

 steppe-like landscapes with fruitful valleys watered by a brook or 

 river, forests of luxuriantly sprouting trees, low and tall, with groves 

 or park-like shrubbery. The climate, though not mild, is by no 

 means intolerable, and nowhere hinders profitable cultivation of the 

 exceedingly fertile, and, for the most part, virgin soil. Four months 

 of hot, almost unvarying summer, four months of severe continuous 

 winter, two months of damp, cold, and changeable spring, and a 

 similar autumn, make up the year, and though the mean warmth 

 of the best half of the year is not sufficient to mature the grape, it 

 ripens all the kinds of grain which we grow in Northern and 

 Central Germany; and in all the southern portions of the crown 

 property the temperature is high enough to admit of melon culture. 

 Such is the character of the land which has been free, for more 

 than two generations, from exiled criminals, and which now harbours 

 such colonists as, within certain limits, one would like to see 

 throughout the whole remaining and not less rich and fertile 

 southern portion of Siberia. Of course these farmers of the Altai 

 cannot be compared with our peasants who inherit their land; but 

 they compare favourably with any ordinary Russian peasants. One 

 can see that their fathers and grandfathers have been serfs of the 



