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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



Underwood & Underwood 



SETTLERS FROM EUROPEAN RUSSIA ARRIVING AT A RAILWAY STATION IN SIBERIA 



The conquest of Siberia by Russia began in the reign of Ivan the Terrible, who gave 

 to two merchants the right to build forts on the rivers Tobol and Irtish. These merchants, 

 Jacob and Gregory Stroganov, hired 800 Cossacks, under the leadership of the Volga River 

 pirate, Yermak, to protect their recently acquired territory. This band penetrated far into 

 the interior and in 1581 captured Sibir, capital of the Siberian Tatar Empire. 



distantly suggest those of the "Parks" of 

 Colorado — woods not thick, because the 

 climate is dry, but scattered in pictur- 

 esque clumps ewer hill and dale. 



As the line pierces deeper into the 

 mountains, the glens are narrower and 

 are filled with a denser forest, out of 

 which bare summits rise to heights of 

 three or four thousand feet. It is a 

 lonely land, with few and small villages, 

 but it is rich in gold and silver, copper, 



coal, and platinum — from here comes 

 nearly all of the world-supply of that 

 metal — with an extraordinary variety of 

 rare and valuable stones. 



The train takes about seven hours to 

 traverse this picturesque region, stopping 

 here and there at a busy mining town, 

 and passing an obelisk which, at the sum- 

 mit level, marks the frontier of Europe 

 and Asia. Thereafter it emerges sud- 

 denly (for the Asiatic slope is shorter 



