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of Yakutsk. In the neighbourhood of the city of Yakutsk,
according to the calculations of the savants, the earth is
frozen to a depth of 1000 feet! This ever-frozen soil exerts
a great influence on the configuration of the lakes and
rivers. It prevents the absorption of the water by the
earth. There are no springs and no subterranean waters.
This accounts also for the very great number of lakes and
marshes in northern Siberia. For the same reason the
rivers very rapidly swell above their normal limits, causing
at times most disastrous inundations.
As a rule, the lakes and rivers abound with fish, while in
the forests are to be found elk, reindeer, fox, sable, etc., and
in the north a species of bighorn or mountain sheep. In
spring the country teems with birds of passage.
The greater part of the province of Yakutsk is covered by
virgin forest, mainly consisting of the Siberian larch and
the Siberian spruce. Among the larches the birch is always
to be found; in the southern parts the Norwegian spruce
and pine, the aspen, and the “cedar” occur. The shores of
the rivers are fringed with different species of willow and
the Siberian alder. Natural meadows are found only in
river-valleys and on the bottoms of dried-up lakes. On
these natural meadows the Yakuts pasture their herds of
cattle, and in their neighbourhood they erect their yurtas.
The greater part of the immense region of Yakutsk is
still a “terra incerta et incognita”. Thousands upon
thousands of square miles where the wild animals and the
Tunguses roam have as yet never been trodden by the feet of
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