Geographic Literature 



457 



or the fierce Sikh. Besides the thirteen 

 provinces under British rule, there are 

 650 native states ; but only 200 of them 

 are of great importance, since native 

 states range in size from Hyderabad, 

 the size of Italy, to single villages in 

 Kathiawar and tiny valleys in the Him- 

 alayan foothills; empires two miles 

 square." 



In the Uttermost East. By C. H. Hawes. 



With 40 illustrations. Pp.478. 5^ 



x 9 inches. Imported by Charles 



Scribner's Sons, New York. 1904. 



$4.50. 



All but three brief chapters of this 

 work are devoted to a description of Sak- 

 halin and of the author's experiences 

 during several months passed on the isl- 

 and. Mr Hawes states that the Russian 

 prisons are much improved since George 

 Kennan's visit to Siberia, but that they 

 are still lamentably and unnecessarily 

 harsh. Of the 7,000 prisoners engaged 

 in hard labor on the island, only 70 were 

 political exiles, all the others being con- 

 demned criminals. 



From a military point of view it com- 

 mands the entrance to the Amur and 

 could be easily taken ; but, as there is 

 no port on Sakhalin to give shelter to 

 vessels, possession to the island would 

 be of little use, excepting for massing 

 troops, say, at Pogobi, for transport in 

 boats in calm weather across the five 

 miles of straits to the mainland. 



The island of Sakhalin is 590 miles 

 long and from 17 to 100 miles broad, 

 with an area of 29,336 miles, or a trifle 

 less than that of Scotland, while its pop- 

 ulation on January 1, 1898, was about 

 36,000, or scarcely one-eighth of the 

 population of the city of Edinburgh. 

 The native population, excluding all of 

 Russian descent, number about 5,000, of 

 whom 1,500 are Ainus. It is separated 

 from the most northerly of the large isl- 

 ands of Japan, Yezo, by La Perouse 

 Strait, which presents to the mariner a 

 difficult and dangerous crossing, though 

 only 28 miles in width. 



It is a mountainous country, a long 

 backbone or ridge running from north to 

 south and keeping near to the west 

 coast, and three spurs stretching to the 

 east coast. The land is for the greater 

 part covered with primeval forest. So 

 dense is this that the natives depend for 

 highway upon the rivers, which they 

 traverse in summer in canoes dug out of 

 tree trunks and in winter in dog or rein- 

 deer sledges over the frozen surfaces. 



Although it is common knowledge 

 that the farther east of Paris one goes 

 the more extreme is the climate, a fact 

 which Napoleon did not seem to have 

 realized in 181 2, yet we should scarcely 

 expect such extremes of climate as a 

 range of 149 degrees of Fahrenheit on 

 an island in the same latitude. There 

 appear to be two main causes. The 

 first is the prevalence of northerly and 

 northwesterly winds in winter and of 

 southerly and southeasterly in summer. 

 The second is the presence of a cold 

 current from the Okhotsk Sea flowing 

 down both sides of the island. The ice, 

 led by the current and driven by the 

 wind from this great reservoir of frost, 

 fills up all the northern portion of the 

 Straits of Tartary, and makes of it a 

 continuation of the subarctic region of 

 frost. 



The winter's cold is, however, fine 

 and dry, and though it has been said 

 that Sakhalin does not know the calm 

 days that prevail throughout the winter 

 in eastern Siberia, yet during the latter 

 half of January and the month of Feb- 

 ruary beautiful bright windless days 

 succeed one another on the island, and 

 the dog sledges and reindeer are brought 

 out, and the natives make their journeys 

 for the barter of skins. 



In its present undeveloped condition 

 the island presents no great commercial 

 attraction. Japan draws supplies of 

 salted fish from Sakhalin as well as from 

 the Amur, and only in the case of hos- 

 tilities with Russia would these be en- 

 dangered. Coal is certainly mined, 

 though not in large quantities, and the 



