204 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



SIBERIA— FUR-TRADE AND GOLD-DIGGINGS. 



Siberia. — Its immense Extent and Capabilities. — The Exiles. — Mentschikoff. — Dolgoroiiky. — Miinich.— . 

 The Criminals. — The free Siberian Peasant. — Extremes of Heat and Cold. — Fur-bearing Animals. — 

 The Sable.— The Ermine.— The Siberian Weasel.— The Sea-otter.— The black Fox.— The Lynx.— 

 The Squirrel. — The varying Hare. — The Suslik. — Importance of the Fur-trade for the Northern 

 Provinces of the Russian Empire. — The Gold-diggings of Eastern Siberia. — The Taiga. — Expenses 

 and Difficulties of searching Expeditions. — Costs of Produce, and enormous Profits of successful 

 Speculators. — Their senseless Extravagance. — First Discovery of Gold in the Ural Mountains. — 

 Jakowlew and Demidow. — Nishne-Tagilsk. 



O IBERIA is at least thirty times more extensive than Great Britain and Ire- 

 ^ land, but its scanty population forms a miserable contrast to its enormous 

 size. Containing scarcely three millions of inhabitants, it is comparatively 

 three hundred times less peopled than the British Islands. This small popula- 

 tion is, moreover, very unequally distributed, consisting chiefly of Russians and 

 Tartars, who have settled in the south or in the milder west, along the rivers 

 and the principal thoroughfares which lead from the territory of one large 

 stream to the other. In the northern and eastern districts, as far as they are 

 occupied, the settlements are likewise almost entirely confined to the river- 

 banks ; and thus the greater part of the enormous forest-lands, and of the in- 

 terminable tundras, are either entirely uninhabited by man, or visited only by 

 the huntsman, the gold-digger, or the migratory savage. 



And yet Siberia has not been so niggardly treated by Nature as not to be 



