Daily globe., 1883-05-29
SIBERLAN WILDS.
The Longest of Earthly Joasrs,eys---The
TreeIeSs PIains Of arctic Asia,


TreeIeSs PIains Of arctic AsiG
The journey from the mouth of the
Lena river, in Eastern Siberia, to the
city of st. Petersburg is one of the
longest land journeys which can be
made on the globe. The distance is
more than five times the direct distance
between New York city and New Orleans,
more than three times that between
Lake Superior and the southern ex-
tremity of Florida, and more than twice
that between New York city and San
Francisco. According to the official
tariff schedules of the Russian Postal
Department, there are 2,342 miles be-
tween Yakootsk and Ekootsk, the cap
ital of Siberia; 2,510 miles between Ir-
kootsk and Perm, the frontier town of
European Russia, and 1852 miles be-
tween Perm and st. Petersburg. Add
ing 1000 miles as the approximate dis
tance between the mouth of the Lena
river and Yakootsk, and we have grand
total of 7,404 miles.
The northern coast of Siberia, be.
tween Cape Chelyuskin and Behring
s'rait, is probably the most barren and
inhospitable part of the whole Russian
empire. For hundreds of miles back
from the Arctic ocean the country con-
sistS almost entirely of great desolate
steppes known to the Russians as tun-
dras pronounced toondras), which in
summer are almost impossible wastes of
brownish gray Arctic moss saturated
with water, and in winter trackless des-
erta of snow, drifted and packed by polar
gales into long, hard, futed waves. The
Siberian tundra differs in many essential
particulars from all other treeless plains.
In the first place, it has foundation of
permanently frozen ground. Underly-
ing great moss tundras which border
the lena river north Of Yakootsk, there
is everywhere thick stratum of eternal
frost, beginning in winter at the surface
OF the earth, and in summer at point
twenty or thirty inches below the sur
face, and extending to depth OF many
hundred feet. What scanty vegetation,
therefore, the tundra affords roots Itself
and finds its nourishment in a thin
layer OF unfrozen ground-a mere
veneering of arabic soil-resting upon
sub stratum 500 or 600 feet in depth of
permanent and impenetrable ice. This
foundation of ice is impervious, of
course, to water, and as the snow melts
in summer the water completely satu-
rates to as great depth as it can pene-
trate, and, with the aid of the continu-
GUS daylight OF June and July, stimu-
lates dense, luxuriant growth of gray
Arctic moss. The moss in course of
time covers the entire plain with soft,
Welding cushion, in which a pedestrian
Will sink to the knee without finding
amy solid footing. Moss has grown out of
Gecaying moss year after year and cent
Ury after century, until the whole tun-
Ora for thousands of square miles is a
vast spongy bog. OF other vegetation
there is little or none. A clump of
dwarf berry bushes, an occasional tuft
Of coarse swamp grass, or patch of
storm and cold-defyinS kedrovnik di-
veIsihcs, perhaps, here aud there, the
vast brownish-gray expanse but, gen.
'rlly speaking, the eye may sweep the
whole circle Of the horizon and see
nothing hut the sky and moss.
At Ill seasons and under al circum-
,taaces this immense border land Of
moss tundras is a land of descIation.
Throughout the entire winter it presents
II picture Of inexpressible dreariness and
desOlatiOn. Even at noon, when the
seaIlke expanse of storm -drifted snow is
flushed family by the red gloomy light
of the low hanging sun, it depresses the
spirits and chills the imagination with
its suggestions Of infinite dreariness and
solitude but at nights, when it ceases
to be bounded even by the horizon, be-
cause the horizon can no longer be dis
tinguished when the pale green stream
ers of the aurora begin to sweep back
and forth over dark segment of circle
in the north, lighting up the whole
white world with transitory flashes of
ghostIy radiance and adding mystery to
darkness and solitude-then the Sibe-
:ian tundra not only becomes mex
pressibly lonely and desolate, but takes
on strange, half-terrible unearthliness
which awes and yet fascinates the mag
nation.