The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-12-26
RESOURCES OF SIBERIA.
More Farming Land Than North Americs
Largest Forests in the World.


The correspondent of the London Times,
who last year described the efforts that
were being made to open up commercial
communications by way of the Arctic seas
between England and the heart of Siberia
was able short time ago to announce tina
those efforts have at length been crowned
with success. Even while he wrote, .valu-
able cargoes which were in London at the
end OF July were being landed and ware
housed at Yeniseisk, 1,500 miles up the
Yenisei. Toward the end of October car
goes which left Yeniseisk three months
before were safe in the London docks.
Hitherto Siberia has been sealed
against the chief products of Western in
dustry. All at once they are delivered
straight from the port of London, with
only one transhipment on the way, to the
quays OF an emporium in Central Siberia.
This will not astonish those who have fol-
lowed the courageous and persistent ex-
plorations conducted by Captain Virgins
during series of years by means of his
who believed in him. OF course the Kara
sea is not passable at all seasons of the
year. Siberia bound vessels must sail
from British ports not later than the end
OF the Lfst week in August in order TO
reach the mouth of the Yenisei in time to
make the homeward voyage the same
season. The next difficulty was not SO
easily surmounted.
1.-THE estuary of the Yenisei is 1G0 miles
in length. 1t is so broad that the small
craft of the upper reaches of the river dare
not brave the northeasterly gales by which
1t Is swept; yet so studded is it with small
islands, SO imperfectly is its channel laid
down in the charts, and SO scanty was the
explorers knowledge as to its depth, that
they, on their side, did not venture to nav
igate it with vessels of considerable
draught. The riverine craft waited at the
head OF the estuary, and the merchantmen
that had come out from England waited
at the mouth, each leaving to the other
the disagreeabie duty of traversing the es-
tuary.
THE result was that they never met.
But this difficulty has been removed by
fuller knowledge. The estuary proves to
be navigable for ships of any draught right
up to karaoul, the port which serves as
the terminus for the river steamers Thus
British merchant vessels sailed nearly 200
miles up the mouth of a Siberian river, ex-
changed cargoes With notilla from the
upper reaches OF the river, and sailed
home again. The expedition took thirty
nine days to reach karaoul, remained
there nineteen, and took twenty-six to re-
turn. 1t was absent from the London
docks for only eight four days.
People do not think Of Siberia as re-
gion TO put money into. But there is
something to be said for Siberia even as
against Mexico, the Argentine Republic
and Uruguay. Baron Nordenskioldfs tes-
tlmony to the natural recources of the
country may stagger those who are in
clined to dismiss Siberia as quantity
that may be neglected. Siberia ne saws.
'surpasses the North American continent
as to the extent of cultivable soil The
Siberian forests are the largest n sLe
world. Its mineral resources are immense.
its climate, excepting the Tundra and
the northernmost forest region, healthy
and as favorable for culture of cereals as
any part OF Europe. 1t is indubitable
that in these very regions, through which
the Genisei runs, there are gold ieIds
which might be carried on far more pron-
itably if they were brought into contact
with the markets of fhe west of Europe.
and corn lands, which are only awaiting
facilities of transit to compete with India,
America and Southern Russia The
Yenisei is navigable for over 1000
miles of its course, and a vessel of
light tonnage can ascend from the
sea to point not far short of the Chinese
frontier. 1t is fed by numerous .tribu-
taries, most of them navigable. More
over there is no reason to doubt that the
Obi, the other great Siberian river, which
discharges into the Arctic sea near the
mouth of the Yenisei, will prove equally
accessible to sea traffic. We do not desire
to oyerrate the Importance of the new
route to Siberia. Its value will to great
extent depend on the attitude of the Rus
sian government-whether it continues or
abandons the exclusive and suspicious pol
icy which it has hitherto followed in re-
gard 10 Central Asian trade"