Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1888-08-16
s,sER,A.s CLIMATE.

SleERlA'S CLIMATE.
| 4 Comparatively Unkn0wn Country which
| 10 by No Means IN Arctic waste.
II is hardly necessary to say that &
country which has an area of five and
! a half million square miles, and which
extends in latitude as far as from the
southern extremity of Greenland to the
island OF Cuba. must present great di-
versities OF climate. topography and
| vegetation. and can not be everywhere
| barren arctic waste. A mere glance
! at map is sufficient to show that a
considerable part of Western Siberia
lies farther south than Nice. Venice
or Milan. and that the suburban bound
AIRY of the Siberian province of Semir.
echinsk is nearer the equator than Ma.
pies. In country which thus stretches
from the latitude of Italy to the lati-
tude of Central Greenland one would
naturally expect to find, and as mat
ter of fact one does find, many varie-
ties of climate and scenery. In some
parts OF the province of Yakutsk the
mean temperature of the month of JAN
uary is more than 80 degrees below
zero. Fahrenheit. while in the province
OF Semipalatinsk the mean temperature
OF the month of July is q degrees
above: and such maximum Temporal
lures as 50 and 100 degrees in the shade
are comparatively common. On the
Taimyr peninsula, east of the Gulf of
OBJ, the permanently frozen ground
thaws out in summer to a depth of only
q few inches, and supports but scanty
vegetation of berry bushes and moss,
while in the southern part of Western
Siberia watermelons and cantalOupes
are profitable crop, tobacco is grown
upon thousands of plantations, and the
peasants harvest annually more than
5O,OOO,OOO bushels of grain. The fact
which l desire especially to impress
upon the mind of the reader is that ST.
IBERIA is not everywhere uniform and no
mogene0us. The northern part of tho
country differs from the southern part
quite as much as the Hudson Bay terri
tory differs from Kentucky; and it is as
great a mistake to attribute the cold
and barrenness of the Lena delta to the
whole of Siberia as it would be to at
tribute the cold and barrenness of King
William Land to the whole of North
America.
10 the traveller who crosses the
Crals for the first time in June nothing
is more surprising than the fervent
heat of Siberian sunshine and the ex-
traordinary beauty and prOfusion of
Siberian flowers. Although we had
been partly prepared by our voyage up
the Kama for the experience which
awaited us on the other side of the
mountains, we were fairly astonished
upon the threshold of Western Siberia
by the scenery, the weather and the
flora. In the fertile, poisoning cOun-
try presented to us as we rode swiftly
eastward into the province OF Tobolsk,
there was absolutely nothing even re-
mOtely to suggest an arctic region. If
we had been blindfOlded and trans
ported to it suddenly in the middle of
sunny afternoon, we could never have
guessed to what part of the world we
had been taken. The sky was as clear
and blue and the air as soft as the sky
and air of California; the trees were
all in full leaf; birds were singing over
the iowery meadows and in the clumps
of birches by the roadside; there were
a drowsy hum of bees and faint fra
GRANGE of flowers and verdure in the
air; and the sunshine was as warm and
bright as that of June afternoon in
the most favored part of the temperate
George Kennan. IN Century.