Vlll.] 
SEA AND RAILWAY COMMUNICATION. 
375 
at present—a land rich in raw materials, but poor in all 
that is required for the convenience and comfort with which the 
civilised man in our days can with difficulty dispense. 
Many perhaps believe that the present want of commercial 
communication may be removed by a railway running across 
Russia and Southern Siberia. But this is by no means the 
case. On the contrary, communication by sea is an indispens¬ 
able condition of such a railway being profitable. For it can 
never come in question to carry on a railway the products of 
the forest or the field over the stretch of three to five thousand 
kilometres which separates the fertile river territory of the Ob- 
Irtisch from the nearest European port. Even if we. suppose 
that the railway freight, inclusive of all costs, could be reduced 
to a farthing the kilometre-ton, it would in any case rise, from 
the grain regions of Siberia to a harbour on the Baltic, to from 
U. to nearly 7/. per ton. So high a freight, with the costs of 
loading in addition, none of the common products of agriculture 
or forestry can stand, as may easily be seen if we compare this 
amount with the prices current in the markets of the world 
for wheat, rye, oats, barley, timber, &c. But if the Siberian 
countryman cannot sell his raw products, the land will continue 
to be as thinly peopled as it is at present, nor can the 
sparse population which will be found there procure themselves 
means to purchase such products of the industry of the present 
day as are able to bear long railway carriage. In the absence of 
contemporaneous sea-communication the railway will therefore 
be without traffic, the land such as it is at present, and 
the unprosperous condition of the European population 
undiminished. 
In order to give the reader an idea of the present natural 
conditions, and the present communication on a Siberian river, 
I shall, before returning to the sketch of the voyage of the 
Vega, give some extracts from notes made during my journey 
up the Yenesej in 1875, reminding the reader, however, that 
