The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-02-14

the expansion from that time was amazing. The city Of T0bolsk was founded in 15S7, only five years after the storming of Sibir. In the autumn of l6O4. just ninety-four years before Peter the Great laid the first stone Of St. Petersburg, Tomsk, which was to
 become the premier city of Siberia, was founded in singular way.
 Tomsk enjoys the unique distinction of being the only one of the old Siber- ian towns originating under pacific auspices. Ten years after Yermak was drowned in a storm on the River IT, tysh, one of his lieutenants. Pesemsky, pushed on to the banks Of the River Tom, fine, nayigable tributary of the
 magnificent Obi. Here, just where the
 Ushaika runs into the Tom, stood the fort Of Tartar chieftain, Tayan, who prudently yielded to the tempting over lures of the Cossack ataman, and agreed to become tributary to the Czar. Boris Gudonoff was now on the throne, in succession to Feodor I, who had followed Ivan the Terrible. Boris ordered a citadel to be built at the junction Of the rivers, and the nucleus of Russian town was rapidly formed, which was called sTomsk, after the chief of the two streams. Tayan was faithful in his allegiance to the Musco- vite government. He was made para mount chief of the Tartar tribes in the region, and at his request many os- trogs, or stoekade forts, were con- structed along the banks of the Tom and it's affiuents. The first exiles from Russia had been sent to Siberia in 1591 by the Car Feodor, and these were settled in Tobolsk.. Successive patches were dispatched to that new city and its neighhorhood, and then as the pro- vince of Tomsk developed many were banished to its growing settlements during the early part of the seventeenth century. The times were stormy. Czar Boris poisoned himself in the year af- ter Tomsk was founded in fit of
 dispair. But nothing seemed to hinder the developments of Siberia, and the prosperity of Tomsk grew by leaps and bounds. It enjoyed peace while inter mittent warfare, ragged in every other | part of the Asiatic empire of the Czar. The wealth of Tomsk and its progress l siye influence and prosperity during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can best be accounted for by it's posi- tion and the extraordinary natural re- sources of the province. Siberia con. | sists of three zones--the northern tun- dra, or frozen region; the Taiga, that grand belt of forest, all the property of the Czar, which has no equal in the world, and the vast southern steppe. expected to become the chief granary
 of both Asia and Europe. Now, Tomsk
 is the chief city of a province which
 is half as large again as France, which extends up northward with the tundra, and by the Obi communicates with the
 Arctic seal and sable and fishing terri tories, and possesses within itself an immense section of the rich timber dis triets of the Taiga, while its southern
 half is nowhere eScelled as a pastoral
 and agricultural country. Moreover, the gold. mines of Tonlsk have been a steady source of wealth for the Russian I government ever since the province was settled. In 1860 the whole population of Siberia, as far as Russia had mast
 cred the country was only 10000. But
 while Central Asia was still for two centuries wrapped in mediaeval dark ness, Western civilization by way of Tobolsk Tomsk and Irkusk constantly advanced eastward along the northern
 line. Indeed, the Russian conquest of
 Central Asia did not really commence till 1886. As late as forty years ago
 slaves were still being sold in the
 streets of Samarcand, and that sacred
 city, the capital of Tamerlane, the
 Marcand of the ancients, and the base of Alexander the Greats operations in
 sogdiana, seemed as far removed as
 was 'Lhasa till this year from the reach of white men. Till the Russians
 marched into it's gate, in 1868, the only white men who in modern times passed
 within It's walls found their way there as captives to be sold at the auction l block, ... ! l But the conquest of the North was one of the phenomena of history. Even Irkutsk was founded before St. Peters
 burg was thought of, though that
 Siberian city is very near Lake, Baikal
 It took the Americans nearly two |