Side-Lights on Siberia: some account of the great Siberian railroad, the prisons, and exile system ... With numerous illustrations

Preface

. The following pages record impressions received in the course of a journey in Siberia during the summer of 1896. The limitations under which a study of this kind must necessarily be conducted will suggest themselves to every mind. But so far as controversial subjects are dealt with, the writer can claim to be in great measure free from the limitation of partiality. Some of the chapters appeared during the course of the past year in ' Blackwood's Magazine,' but ' with one exception these have been altered and considerably enlarged. The writer would here express his obligations to Brofessor A. H. Keane's 'Asia ' (Stanford's ' Compendium of Geography ') ; to the second edition of a Bussian book, ' Siberia and the Great Siberian Bailway,' issued by the Department of Trade and Manufactures in < the Ministry of Finance; to various local calendars; and to Brofessor Thun's able 'Geschichte der revolutionaren Bewegungen in Bussland,' on which chap. x. is largely based. The statistics everywhere are taken from the Imperial Prison Eeports.

PREFACE.

. Several of the illustrations are from photographs by a Mr Kuznetzov : the remainder are original. It is a commonplace for those who have travelled in Eussia to acknowledge the courtesy of officials with whom they came in contact. To many such officials the writer owes a debt of gratitude, especially to Mr Salomon, Director-in-Chief of Bussian prisons, and to State Secretary Kulomzin ; as also to his valued friend Brince N. S. Galitzin, who is happily not unknown in this country. Edinburgh, Feb. 1898. PAGE 1 16 CONTENTS.

Chapter I. The Land And The People

Introduction — Area of Siberia— Political divisions— Mountains— Tundra — Taiga — Fertile zone — Amuria — River-systems — The Ob, Yenisei, and Lena — Population — Sub - Arctic races — Buryats and Shamanism — Tungus and Yakutes — Original Russian population ......

Chapter II. The Great Siberian Iron Road

Historical review — Special Commission — Original plan of railway — Progress up to present time — The emigration movement — Regulations for its management — The rush of 1896 — Approaching Tchelyabinsk — Kurgan — Omsk — Primitive tools — Crossing the river Ob — Regaining the railway — The workmen employed — Convict labour — A military train — The settlers' camp at Atchinsk — Incidents of the journey — Krasnoyarsk — Careful nature of the work — The section round Lake Baikal — Misovskaya to Srjetensk — Trans-Manchurian branches — North and south Ussuri lines — Changes on the original plan — Coal — Relation of the railway to Russia — The Perm - Kotlass scheme — The monument to Russia's culture in the nineteenth century ....... CONTENTS. X 61 114 138

Chapter III. Travel In Siberia

On the great post-road — Requirements — Cost of posting — The postmaster's book — To prevent racing — The yamstchik — His monotonous life — His management of horses — Post-stations outside and inside — Siberian villages— The public playground — Drunkenness — When the kye come hame — Life on the trakt — The Angara — Lake Baikal — The Buryat country — Valley of the Selenga— Fellow-travellers — Tea caravans — Robbery — Incidents and mishaps — Through the flood — Ferries and ferry-boats — River-travel — The Ob — Scenery on its banks — Sunset on the Ob — Taking in wood — The Irtish — Difficulties in its navigation .......

Chapter IV. Monarch Or Monk

1 A LEGEND OF TOMSK. Tomsk — Description of the town — "Alexander's House" — The life of Theodore Kuzmitch — His death — The last years of Alexander I. — Did he abdicate 1

Chapter V. On The March

Departure of a convict gang from the Tomsk Forwarding Prison — The Peresilni Prison at Moscow — Overcrowding — The Russian mujik at home — Lodging-houses in St Petersburg — Tiumen Forwarding Prison— A convict barge— Life on the river — Arrival at Tomsk .... CONTENTS. XI 166 194 237

Chapter VI

on the march — concluded. Description of the Forwarding Prison at Tomsk— Attitude of the soldiers towards the prisoners — Convict dress — Transference by etape — Etapes and polu-etapes — Allowances on the march — The brodyaga — fitapes at Mariinsk and near Kansk — Life on the march — Etapes in Eastern Siberia — Politicals en route — Criticism — Changes effected by the Trans-Siberian Railway .

Chapter VII. Alexandrovsky Central

Past opinion regarding Siberia — Evolution of the prison — Statistics — The Siberian exile system — Distribution of ex-convicts and exile settlers — Alexandrovsky Central — The natchalnik — The Orphans' Home — The church — The prison buildings — Unusual precautions — The outhouses — Capital punishment — The plet — Branding — Indoor labour — The Peresilni Prison — The hospital — Local prison at Irkutsk — Contrasted with Alexan- " drovsky Central — Of animal food — The darker possibilities open to a "free command" . . . . .

Chapter VIII. The Silver Mines Of Nertchinsk

The Nertchinsk penal settlement — How approached— The Chinese in Siberia — The valley of the Shilka — Gorni-Zerentui — Convict labour on the railway — Description of the prison — The children's home — The settlement of voluntary followers — The released convict — Algatchi — Work in the mines — A Tungus village — Akatui — Slavinski the political — Down the mine — Alexandrovsky and its houses of refuge CONTENTS. XII 270 298

Chapter IX. Sakhalin And Other Centres

Sakhalin — History of the island — Its climate — Russian population — Native population — Exile settlers — Convict labour — Nertchinsk local prison — A merchants' town — The prison hospital at Tchita — Sunday labour — Local prison at Verkhni- Udinsk — Krasnoyarsk — Tobolsk and its prison factory — The Gubernski prison at Tomsk — Influence of exile settlers upon the Siberians .......

Chapter X. The Revolutionary Movement

Its birth — Alexander I. — The Decembrists — Alexander Herzen — Tchernishevski — Abolition of serfage — Katkov — Nihilism — Netchaiev's conspiracy — Lavrov and Bakunin — The "going amongst the people " — Failure of the movement — The secret society " Land and Liberty " — Jakov Stepanovitch — The Hundred and Ninety-three — Terrorism — Hunger-strikes — Soloviev's attempt — Campaign against Alexander II. — His assassination — Secret printing-presses and bomb-factories — What the Terrorists achieved . . . . .

CHAPTER XL THE POLITICAL PRISONER.

Past opinion — Exile by administrative process — Politicals on the march — An "administrative" in prison — Life in a Yakute idus — A political of the second class — Schlusselburg — The ex-political newspaper editor — Terrorist colonies — Strength of the Terrorist party — Life at Kara — Manifestoes — A girl CONTENTS. XIII 328 373 377 380 political — The Netchaiev conspirator — The romance of the political's life — Russia and France — Present - day socialistic movements — Russian justice — Growth of the revolutionary idea — Terrorists and the peasants — The watchmaker and the photographer — Politicals and scientific work — The bright side of their existence — Do they remain in Siberia 1 — Criticism — The freedom of Russia ......

Chapter XII. Conclusion

Criticism of the Siberian exile system — The future of the country — Its internal development and unity .... Glossary Index ILLUSTRATIONS. FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE INTERIOR OF A PRISON KAMERA . . . Frontis-piect AN OLD KARA PSIJUT ...... 90 A SETTLEMENT OF VOLUNTARY FOLLOWERS, EASTERN SIBERIA . 152 BR0DYAGA BRANDED B ..... . 178 LOADING A CONVICT WAGGON . . . . . 192 " FREE-COMMANDS " ...... 200 THE READING-ROOM AT ALEXANDROVSKY CENTRAL . .212 CONVICT BRANDED SKA. . . . . . 222 OFF TO THE MINES ...... 238 THE YOUNGEST OF THE GIRLS ..... 250 GUARDING THE PIT-HEAD ...... 252 CONSTRUCTION OF THE PRISON AT ALGATCHI . . . 254 AKATUI ........ 258 AT THE PIT-HEAD ....... 262 FEMALE CONVICTS, ALEXANDROVSKY .... 264 BLIND OLD CONVICTS ...... 266 OUTSIDE LABOUR AT THE OLD SMELTING-WORKS, ALGATCHI . 276 GRINDING CORN ....... 282 THE ROLL-CALL ....... 294 IN THE GOLD-MINES AT KARA ..... 342 FEMALE CONVICT LABOUR AT KARA ....

ILLUSTRATIONS. ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT. SETTLERS EN ROUTE ...... 31 A BREAK IN THE EMBANKMENT IN TRANS-BAIKALIA . . 50 LISTVINITCHNAYA ....... 52 YAMSTCHIK AND BURYAT WOMAN ..... 68 OUTSIDE A POSTHOUSE ...... 73 TILL THE MASTER RETURNS ..... 80 RIVER INGODA, EASTERN SIBERIA ..... 93 PENDULUM FERRY-BOAT ON THE NERTCHA . . . 102 FALLEN TREES ON THE BANKS OF THE OB 105 SUNSET ON THE OB ...... 108 VILLAGE ON THE BANKS OF THE IRTISH . . . .110 TAKING IN WOOD ....... 112 ON THE OUTSKIRTS ....... 115 THE HOME OF THEODORE KUZMITCH .... 121 A CONVICT ........ 138 CONVICT-BARGE ON THE OB .... . 154 IN THE CAGE ....... 157 A CONVICT ........ 166 AN ET APE, EASTERN SIBERIA . . . . .186 ON THE HORIZON ....... 193 CONVICT CHAINED TO WHEELBARROW .... 195 ALEXANDROVSKY CENTRAL ...... 203 THE CHURCH AT ALEXANDROVSKY CENTRAL . . . 207 INSIDE THE COURTYARD ...... 210 PALATCH WITH PLET ■ ■ ■ . . 218 CONVICT CHAINED TO WHEELBARROW, RESTING . . . 221 THE SETTLEMENT OF THE VOLUNTARY FOLLOWERS, GORNI ZERENTUI ...... 249 THE BEST CABIN ..... 251 MAP OF SIBERIA at fhe gnd SIDE-LIGHTS ON SIBERIA.

Introduction

— AREA OF SIBERIA — POLITICAL DIVISIONS — MOUNTAINS — TUNDRA — TAIGA — FERTILE ZONE — AMURIA — RIVER-SYSTEMS — THE OB, YENISEI, AND LENA — POPULATION — SUB-ARCTIC RACES — BCRYATS AND SHAMANISM — TCNGUS AND YAKUTES — ORIGINAL RUSSIAN POPULATION. Sibepja is at once the reservoir of the Bussian empire and its cesspool. In the latter aspect it has been known of old time; the former distinction has only lately come to light. Alongside of a truer appreciation of the value of the land, based largely upon the unearthing of its hidden treasures and the cultivation of its fertile soil, there has sprung up in the minds of many Bussians a recognition of the fatuity of early ideas as to the best use to which the country could be put, and they are quietly working to bring about a change. Hence it has come to pass that to-day the great domain is in a transition stage.

The old Siberia, with its unhallowed associations of gloomy exile A system, long dark winters, and inhospitable wastes, is slowly passing away before the new Siberia, with its well-organised schemes of emigration, bright summers, and fair expanses of tilled land. Not that there has been any change in the seasons : what has altered is the point of view from which the territory was wont to be regarded. When one says that the country has a superficial area of nearly 5,312,000 square miles, not only is very little impression of its immense extent conveyed by the figures — this is better done by describing it as about forty-four times as large as Great Britain and Ireland — but it has also to be borne in mind that they are merely an approximation. As a matter of fact, the actual area of Siberia is still unknown.

Nansen complained that the charts of the north coast were inaccurate ; and the boundary between Siberia and China has still to be strictly defined over many lineal miles. In the interior there are hundreds of square miles where the foot of man has never trod. The tundra is little known ; the taiga is only now coming into considera tion. Again, even those districts which have been longest known would seem to be still subject to the caprice of the imperial cartographers. Thus the European Eussia of geo graphy should properly lie west of the Urals, but has in part been transferred politically to the other side, so that Siberia is now the poorer for the province of Yekaterinburg, which formerly constituted a part of the Eussian dominion in Asia. Siberia was annexed to the Bussian empire in the first instance by the Don Cossack Yermak at the end of the six teenth century.

It may be divided into the following parts : (1) Western Siberia, comprising the Governments of Tobolsk and Tomsk in the basin of the Ob. Formerly these two POLITICAL DIVISIONS. regions were united under a governor-general, but now their civil governors are subject to the direct control of the Minis ter of Interior, while the troops in the Government of Tomsk are under the command of the governor-general of the Steppe country. (2) Eastern Siberia, comprising the Governments of Yeniseisk and Irkutsk in the basin of the Yenisei, and the oblast 1 of Yakutsk in the basin of the Lena and other lesser rivers, all united under a governor-general resident at Irkutsk. Yakutsk is chiefly remarkable in having one of the poles of greatest cold within its borders. In the district of Verk hoyansk on the upper Yana, —49° C. have been registered in the coldest and 15° C. in the hottest month.

In the town of Irkutsk the possible range is even greater, as there the maximum and minimum temperatures are 33°*8 C. (1894) and — 44°*3 C. (January 1890) respectively. The snowfall diminishes sensibly as you travel from west to east. (3) The Amur oblast, to whose governor-general are also subject the adjacent Littoral (Primorsky) territory including Sak halin, and the oblast Trans-Baikalia. The regions covered by these three oblasts include the left half of the basins of the rivers Amur and Ussuri, the entire coast-zone bordering on the Japanese, Okhotsk, and Bering seas, together with the peninsula of Kamtchatka, and the territory immediately to the east of Lake Baikal. (4) The Steppe country, com prising the oblasts of Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk, and Semir jetchensk, united under a governor-general.

They occupy the upper basins of the Irtish and Ishim, as also the basins of several less important rivers that fall into Lake Balkhash. 1 An oblast (which may be rendered " territory ") has not reached the same degree of political organisation as a " government," and has usually as governor an officer still actually in the military service, with the title of "military governor." He has full command of the troops in his oblast, but is subject in the last instance to the governor-general. The Steppe portion proper of this whole region (for Semir jetchensk is essentially a mountainous district) differs from the adjacent plain of Western Siberia in presenting no absolute level. Its ill-watered surface is broken by low but well-marked ridges of crystalline rock containing various minerals, and the oases are so few and far between that it is practically abandoned to the nomadic Kirghize.

Although the better-known western lowlands of Siberia, with their 400 to 600 feet of altitude, have sometimes in popular description and imagination been vaguely extended over a wider area than they really cover, yet it must not be forgotten that there are mountain-ranges in the land of premier importance. Chief amongst these is the intricate Altai system, which, although forming for many miles the natural southern boundary of the country, may be held to run up through it — but by no means continuously — in a north easterly direction under such names as the Sayan Mountains, and, east of Baikal, the Yablonovoi and Stanovoi chains, as far as the volcanic regions, active and passive, of Kamtchatka, beyond which it gradually descends to the East Cape. Strictly, however, Eastern Siberia is a lofty plateau, of which at least one of these mountain-chains may be regarded as the border-ridge.

For peaks perpetually snow-clad, as for the feeding-grounds of glaciers, one has to go to parts of the irregular Altai range, or to the giant of the Sayan — Munku-Sardik (10,700 feet). From a convenient though not perfectly accurate point of view, Siberia may be regarded as divided into three broad east-and-west zones,1 of which the one farthest to the north is characterised as tundra. This is the name applied to the belt of land that skirts the Arctic Ocean from Novaya 1 Siberia and the Exile System, by George Kennan, vol. i. p. 57. THE TUNDRA. 5 Zemlya to Bering Strait, swampy and treeless for the greater part, and extending inland for a distance that varies from 150 to 400 miles. Desolate, inhospitable, treacherous, the surface of the tundra is covered in the summer months with myriad meres, rivulets, and marshy places, for the melting snows of winter cannot soak into the frozen sub soil of alternate layers of earth and ice.

During the death less days of June and July the sun shines dimly through the vapour that rises from the mossy bogs ; but its heat is sufficient to induce a lusty growth of brown moss and grey lichen, that overspreads the thin unfrozen upper stratum. On the more southern slopes, not so completely water logged, the scanty vegetation of the tundra is reinforced by dwarf bushes of bilberry, wild raspberry, and cranberry; coarse grasses, dandelions, and poppies too are not un known. Here and there various species of polar willow, alder, and stunted birch cling to the river-banks or crouch in the lee of some hillock, but it is a larch — Larix daurica — that pushes farthest towards the north. In early spring the lonely wastes resound to the harsh screams of cranes, geese, and ducks, swans, grebe, and snipe; while sturgeon, sterlet, nelma, omul, and numerous other fish, ascend the rivers from the sea to spawn.

There congregate the rein deer, glad to quit the woods and with them the rapacious gadflies, one representative of the abundant insect life that wakes into being at the breath of the spring. But in the winter, and more especially throughout those two darkest months when the moon, stars, and northern lights alone illuminate the frigid desert; when the sun brightens the southern horizon for a brief hour as if in un fulfilled promise of a glorious dawn ; when the fierce arctic gales plough deep furrows in the trackless snow, and the courses of the frozen rivers are only discovered by a mean dering line of dusky scrub ; when every living creature has sought the sheltering woods, there to abide until the return of vernal days, — then it is that the tundra presents that spectacle of utter dreariness, mysteriousness, nay, other worldliness, that is peculiarly its own.

The second zone, into which the first imperceptibly passes on its southern borders, is the Forest zone or taiga. It stretches from the Urals to the eastern shores of Kamt chatka, and even penetrates far to the north along some of the larger river - valleys. Siberian poplars, with ash-grey stem and quivering leaves ; spruces, with their regular isosceles-triangled contour and dark shading ; giant larches towering above their fellows ; cedars {Pinus cembra), whose peculiar branches are crowded with knob-like bunches of green needles ; Scotch firs, with cinnamon - coloured upper trunks toning down to sombre iron-grey ; the oriental pitch pine, and, towards the outskirts, birches with pure white gentle stems, or moisture-loving alder, — these form the body, while the padding is largely left to the small but graceful Siberian spruce, with smoother bark and darker leaves than the ordinary spruce fir.

It is a place of gloom below and silent conflict in mid-air. As little do the life-and light diffusing rays of the seemly sun penetrate that felted mass of tree-tops, as does the reckless trapper force his way through their stout wall of stems buttressed by the decaying trunks and gnarled roots of heroes that have fallen in the unequal strife with devastating hurricanes, and are now almost buried beneath the accumulated mould of many years. Herbage is wanting in these denser spots : the grey, tenacious, clayey soil is carpeted with moss and lichens. Such is the Siberian jungle, now pierced in part by two thin lines of iron rail. THE FERTILE ZONE. The third zone, before which the forest belt of lofty trees is slowly retreating towards the north, is the open, fertile, and, in great part, arable zone of Southern Siberia.

It practically coincides with the agricultural zone, and is largely inhabited by a settled population ; but it includes the whole steppe region, of which only small areas can be brought under the plough. It may be roughly described as lying south of a line drawn from the town of Tobolsk to that of Tomsk, there after embracing the southern parts of the Governments of Yeniseisk and Irkutsk. Much of Trans-Baikalia is cultivable, and it is only a question of time till the banks of the Amur and Ussuri become entirely colonised with farmers. Hence in this cultivated tract agriculture is the predominant feature, not only being the fundamental source of the prosperity of those who practise it, but, on the whole, yielding surplus quantities of grain, by the sale of which the population is enabled to pay its taxes and procure supplies.

It has been estimated that to every hundred persons of the actual popu lation the following areas are sown with grain : ' — Desiatines.2 In the southern districts of the Tobolsk Government . 104 In the central part of the Tomsk Government . . 87 In the agricultural region of the Yeniseisk Government 102 In the agricultural region of the Irkutsk Government . 97 That portion of Siberia which, from the name of the river that most contributes to its extensive wateringsystem, is known as the Amur country, deserves an added word. If the Argun and Kerulen be reckoned as the head-waters of the Amur, then its length is not less than 3070 miles. The excessive humidity of the climate, and the consequent 1 Siberia and the Great Siberian Railway, second edition, p. 96. - See Glossary. swampy reed -covered nature of many of the lower moun tain-slopes, are by no means favourable to agriculture : still it has not been found impossible to cope even with these drawbacks.

The continual burning of the ground vegetation over wide areas of the affected districts has resulted not only in the gradual conversion of the damp soil into fertile land, but has indirectly influenced the climate for the better. The forests, with which much of the regions of the Amur are covered, contain the trees already noted as constituting the taiga, with the distinctive additions of the Manchurian cedar, yew, maple, ash, walnut, linden (also found in Tobolsk), and cork-tree. Indeed, owing to its position with regard to the Bacific Ocean, this province has a flora peculiarly rich and unique. To some minds the river-system of Siberia will be hardly less interesting than the exile system. In the first place, there is no single long river like the Nile, whose tribu taries can never be regarded as anything else.

Each of the great Siberian waterways may be said to be formed by the junction of two streams of immense volume, as in the case of the Ob-Irtish, Yenisei -Angara, Lena-Vitim, and Amur- Argun systems. A second feature has been stated thus by Brofessor A. H. Keane : " The land has a general inclination towards the north, so that all the great rivers flowing from the southern highlands pursue a normal and nearly parallel northerly course to the Arctic Ocean. But most of the large tributaries flow rather north-west and north-east to the left and right banks of the main streams, thus affording an almost uninterrupted water-highway from the Urals to the Bacific, as well as from the southern highlands to the Arctic. From the river Ural to Yakutsk, a distance of 6000 miles, this magnificent waterway is broken only by two short portages baer's law. 9 between the Ob and Yenisei, and between the Yenisei and Lena respectively.

The whole country is in this way covered with a network of rivers, affording altogether some 30,000 miles of navigable waters."1 A third observation applies only to those rivers that flow in a northerly direc tion. The traveller observes that in each case the river hugs its right bank, which is commonly very steep and lofty, while the left bank is low, sometimes clothed with willow, and merges in the neighbouring plain. At the town of Atchinsk, where the railway crosses the river Tchulim, the embankment rises towards the bridge to a considerable height in order to gain the loftier level of the eastern bank. Appearances suggest that at no very remote date the present western bank formed part of the river's bed — that, in short, the very rivers are joining in the rush towards the east. This displacement of the rivers is due to the rotation of the earth.

Since the force with which any moving body on the earth's surface would be deflected to the side under the influence of its rotation is dependent on its velocity, we see that the more quickly moving masses of water in the centre of a stream flowing north will be urged against the right bank more strongly than the slower-flowing parts, so that, on the whole, the current runs more swiftly on that side of the river-bed, and in consequence the erosion there is greater. Fenck2 illustrates this law of Baer by the consideration of a perfectly elastic ball running along a trench with perfectly elastic sides. On coming in contact with the right wall it rebounds, and crosses towards the left wall ; but while its motion in that direction is retarded by 'the earth's rotation, its return journey to the right is accelerated from 1 Asia, vol. i. p. 179. 2 Morphologie der Erdoberflache, vol. i. pp. 349-356. the same cause.

This is continually repeated, with the result that, on the average, the right wall is struck more sharply than the left. Where there is no perfect elasticity of the walls, the right suffers tear and wear more than the left. A fourth consideration is that, while the signs of winter are disappearing in the interior and southern parts of Siberia, the estuaries and lower reaches of the great rivers remain frost-bound, occasioning spring floods on all the north-flowing rivers of such dimensions that the Ob, for example, assumes, not so far below Tomsk, the appearance of a great inland sea, whose opposite banks may not be seen from one another. The basin of this last colossal waterway occupies an area of over a million and a half square miles at the lowest com putation, while its length is hardly under 3500 miles.

The waters of its chief western head-streams — the Tobol and Ishim — are collected on the left by the Irtish, which, from the fact that it traces its source to the Kobdo plateau in Western Mongolia, should be regarded as " the true upper course of the main stream." The Ob itself rises on the northern slopes of the Altai, and after receiving hundreds of tributaries, of which, on its lower reaches, the Tom, Tchulim, and Ket are the most important, it unites some miles above Troitsk with the more travelled Irtish, and thereafter they pursue a joint course of 700 miles, although indeed in two separate chan nels — the Great and Little Ob — to Arctic seas. The river Ket possesses a certain commercial interest, as its head waters have been put in connection with those of the Kas, a tributary of the Yenisei, by utilising an intermediate lake and building a canal some five miles in length.

By this enterprise the basins of the Ob and Yenisei are virtually united. THE YENISEI. The Yenisei is decidedly inferior to the Ob in respect of the size of its basin, although if, on geological grounds, the Selenga be reckoned as one of its head-streams, its total length is not much less. Both of the great branches take their rise in Chinese territory, and break northwards through the mountain-barriers that separate the two coun tries. The Selenga, reinforced by the Orkhon, which takes its rise in the veritable Gobi itself, falls into Baikal, the largest fresh-water lake in Asia, of which more will be said later. The outflow of the lake is through the Angara, a considerable, characteristic stream, on which Irkutsk stands. Its confluence with the main river produces a body of water whose breadth is never less than a mile, increasing near that point in time of flood by more than four times that amount, and immediately above its estuary by forty times.

One of its chief eastern tributaries, the Nijni (Lower) Tunguska, approaches within fourteen miles of the Lena, which, if we pass over the Khatanga, Anabara, Olenek, Yana, Indigirka, and Kolima, is the only remaining river of any size that discharges its waters into the Arctic. Bising among the mountains to the west of Lake Baikal, it receives upon the right the tribute of the Vitim and Aldan (each of these rivers doubling the volume of the Lena previous to its junction with them), not to speak of the Olekma, and the stately, if somewhat solitary, western affluent, the Viliui. The area of its enormous basin has been estiuiated at a milliou square miles, while the length of the Lena proper and the Lena-Vitim system are 2900 and 3280 miles re spectively. Unlike the Ob with its large gulf, or the Yenisei with its broad open estuary, the Lena pours its waters into the Arctic by means of a delta some 8000 square miles in extent.

Brojecting far into the polar seas, its main channel often blocked by floes for weeks in summer, this delta makes the Lena far less accessible than its kindred Yenisei. Of the rivers that flow towards the Bacific, mention need only be made of the Anadir, emptying itself into the Bering Sea, and of the Amur, about which something has already been said. Economically, the latter is by far the most important of all the Siberian rivers. After piercing the Khingan Mountains, which separate Manchuria from the Mongolian plateau, it is joined at Blagovyeshtchensk by the Zeya from the north, and later by the Bureya, while the Sungari and Ussuri swell its volume on the right bank. Before this, however, it has already begun to swerve in a north-easterly direction, and enters the sea opposite the north-west coast of Sakhalin.