becomes denser and more impenetrable, the spruce, the silver-fir, and the cedar, as well as 

 poplars and birches being predominant. In the taiga, the trees assume quite gigantic 

 dimensions, especially the cedar, not unfrequently attaining a height of from 30 to 40 m., 

 with a circumference of 6 to 8 m. This is the so-called black or moist taiga, characteri- 

 zed by an exceedingly great humidity, even in places in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of the steppe region, and which is especially characteristically developed here on the 

 northern sides of the mountains. The southern sides, although moist as well, 

 are for all that somewhat drier. The moisture is kept very long, the scarce sun- 

 rays reaching doAvn to the ground, being but little effective. In the middle of 

 the day a sultry vapour rises from the ground, but as soon as the sun sinks 

 a little, the moist twilight among the roots of the gigantic trees prevails again. 

 People and horses moving onwards among the enormous trunks appear strangely 

 diminutive amidst these surroundings. Everywhere fallen or nearly fallen trees 

 lie scattered about pell-mell, in part overgrown, and frequently so rotten that 

 only a thin crust has been left, through which the traveller breaks when placing his foot 

 upon it. In the interior of the taiga, the downpour is considerable, and in win- 

 ter the snow is deep, continuing till far into the summer, and, when melting, irrigating 



Fig. 26. On horseback through the virgin coniferous forest under the leadership of the Sayansk 

 mountains, about 350 m. above sea-level In the foreground chiefly Yeratrum album. 



49 



