WESTERN SIBERIA AND THE ALTAI MOUNTAINS 



471 



Photograph courtesy Department of Commerce 

 A GROUP OF SIBERIAN CHILDREN IN FRONT OF A COOPERATIVE STORE ESTABLISHED BY 

 THE SIBERIAN GOVERNMENT FOR THE DISTRIBUTION OF PROVISIONS TO THE NEEDY 



other way, i. e., from western Europe to 

 far eastern Asia. (See the National 

 Geographic Society's Map of Asia, issued 

 as a supplement with this number of 

 The Geographic.) 



Of the comparatively familiar 1,600 

 miles or thereabouts from Calais to Mos- 

 cow, nothing need be said, except that so 

 far as the aspects of nature are con- 

 cerned they are comparatively monoto- 

 nous, for the surface is an almost un- 

 broken level, only one group of low 

 mountains in Westphalia rising out of the 

 sandy plains of western and central Ger- 

 many. 



From Moscow onward the land, though 

 generally flat, has its undulations ; but to 

 the eye of a naturalist it continues to be 

 somewhat uniform, for there are very 

 few deep railway cuttings to indicate the 

 rocks that lie beneath the surface, and 

 as the country traversed is nearly all 

 either cultivated or forest-clad, few wild 

 plants are seen, and these, the latitude 

 being the same, are of the usual Central 

 European types. 



The lirst striking view is reached at 

 the town of Samara, where the broad 



Volga, greatest of European rivers, is 

 crossed by a long and lofty bridge, more 

 than five hundred miles above the point 

 where it enters the Caspian Sea. Here 

 for the first time one feels a change in 

 the air, for here begins the dryness of 

 the Asiatic steppes. 



CONSUMPTIVES CAME TO DRINK MARES* 

 MILK 



Thirty-seven years ago, when I sailed 

 down the Volga, the railway ended at 

 this point. Thither, in that day, con- 

 sumptive patients used to come from 

 northern and middle Russia to drink 

 mares' milk and gain strength in the 

 invigorating breezes that came from the 

 southeast over arid plains. It was then 

 the summer sanatorium of Russia, as the 

 south coast of Crimea was the winter 

 resort of those rich enough to travel so 

 far. 



A hundred miles beyond the Volga blue 

 heights appear on the eastern horizon, 

 and we quickly enter the foothills of the 

 Ural range, their gently rounded slopes 

 descending into charming valleys, pas- 

 ture alternating with open woods which 



