Russia | Page 9

broken by no abrupt lines or vivid tints.
The only contrast with the dull expanse of land is the everlasting azure
sky, along which the sun creeps at a few degrees only above the

horizon. In these intensely cold latitudes it rises and sets with hard
outlines, unsoftened by the ruddy haze elsewhere encircling it on the
edge of the horizon. Yet such is the strength of its rays that the snow
melts on the housetop exposed to its glare, while in the shade the
temperature is 40° to 50° below freezing point. At night, when the
firmament is not aglow with the many-tinted lights and silent
coruscations of the aurora borealis, the zodiacal light and the stars still
shine with intense brightness.
To this severe winter, which fissures the surface and rends the rocks of
the rivers into regular basalt-like columns, there succeeds a sudden and
delightful spring. So instantaneous is the change that nature seems as if
taken by surprise and rudely awakened. The delicate green of the
opening leaf, the fragrance of the budding flowers, the intoxicating
balm of the atmosphere, the radiant brightness of the heavens, all
combine to impart to mere existence a voluptuous gladness. To
Siberians visiting the temperate climes of Western Europe, spring
seems to be unknown beyond their lands. But these first days of new
life are followed by a chill, gusty and changeful interval, arising from
the atmospheric disturbances caused by the thawing of the vast snowy
wastes. A relapse is then experienced analogous to that too often
produced in England by late east winds. The apple blossom is now
nipped by the night frosts falling in the latter part of May. Hence no
apples can be had in East Siberia, although the summer heats are
otherwise amply sufficient for the ripening of fruit. After the fleeting
summer, winter weather again sets in. It will often freeze at night in the
middle of July; and after the 10th of August the sear leaf begins to fall,
and in a few days all are gone, except perhaps the foliage of the larch.
The snow will even sometimes settle early in August on the still leafy
branches, bending and breaking them with its weight. Below the
surface of the ground, winter reigns uninterrupted even by the hottest
summers.
With its vast extent and varied climate, Siberia naturally embraces
several vegetable zones, differing more from each other even than those
of Europe. The southern Steppes have a characteristic and well-marked
flora, forming a continuation of that of the Aral, Caspian and Volga

plains. The treeless northern tundras also constitute a vegetable domain
as sharply defined as the desert itself, while between these two zones of
Steppe and tundra the forest region of Europe stretches, with many
subdivisions, west and east right across the continent. Of these
subdivisions the chief are those of the Ob, Yenisei, Lena, and Amur
basins.
Beyond the northern tundras and southern Steppes by far the greatest
space is occupied by the forest zone. From the Urals to Kamchatka the
dense taiga, or woodlands are interrupted only by the streams, a few
natural glades and some tracts under cultivation. The term taiga is used
in a general way for all lands under timber, but east of the Altai it is
applied more especially to the moist and spongy region overgrown with
tangled roots and thickets, where the mari, or peat bogs, and marshes
alternate with the padi, or narrow ravines. The miners call by this name
the wooded mountains where they go in search of auriferous sands. But
everywhere the taiga is the same dreary forest, without grass, birds, or
insects, gloomy and lifeless, and noiseless but for the soughing of the
wind and crackling of the branches.
The most common tree in the taiga is the larch, which best resists the
winter frost and summer chills. But the Siberian woodlands also
include most of the trees common to temperate Europe--the linden,
alder, juniper, service, willow, aspen, poplar, birch, cherry,
apricot--whose areas are regulated according to the nature of the soil,
the elevation or aspect of the land. Towards the south-east, on the
Chinese frontier, the birch is encroaching on the indigenous species,
and the natives regard this as a sure prognostic of the approaching rule
of the "White Tsar."
Conflagrations are very frequent in the Siberian forests, caused either
by lightning, the woodmen, or hunters, and sometimes spreading over
vast spaces till arrested by rivers, lakes or morasses. One of the
pleasures of Siberian travelling is the faint odour of the woods burning
in the distance.
The native flora is extremely rich in berries of every kind, supplying
food for men and animals.

The extreme eastern regions of the Amur basin and Russian Manchuria,
being warmer, more humid and fertile, also abound more