HILLS NEAR A SIBERIAN RIVER.
"There are not," was the reply, "only some low hills and rounded peaks that do not rise to the height and dignity of mountains. I believe most geographers are agreed on applying the term 'mountain' only to elevations of fifteen hundred feet and more, everything below that figure being called a hill. Under this restriction there are no mountains on the road through Siberia between Lake Baikal and the Ural range. Most of the country is flat and uninteresting; sometimes it is a perfectly level plain, and in other places it is undulating like a rolling prairie in Kansas or Nebraska. Along the rivers it is broken by ranges of hills, but as soon as you go back from the rivers you come to the plain again.
"Hour after hour, and day after day, we rode over this monotonous country, the landscape, or rather snowscape, presenting very little to attract the eye. This feature of the country makes the Siberian journey a dreary one, not unlike the journey from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains before the days of the transcontinental railway."
Fred asked if this level part of Siberia was treeless like many portions of our Western country.
"There is a vast amount of treeless land," said Mr. Hegeman, in response to the inquiry, "but it is not all of that sort. There are many forests of birch, pine, spruce, and larch. In some localities birch is the only wood for building purposes, in others larch, and in others pine or spruce. Other Siberian trees are willow, fir, poplar, elm, and maple. Central and Southern Siberia are well wooded, but the farther we go towards the north the fewer trees do we find. The plains bordering the Arctic Ocean are treeless; the poplar disappears at 60° north latitude, the birch at 63°, and the pine and larch at 64°."
"I thought I had read about a species of cedar that grows over the plains to the far North," said the Doctor, "and that it serves to make that region habitable by furnishing fuel for the natives."
"I was about to mention the trailing cedar," said Mr. Hegeman. "The Russians call it kedrevnik, and some of the native tribes regard it as a special gift of Providence. It spreads on the ground like a vine, and has needles and cones similar to those of the cedar; the trunks are gnarled and twisted, very difficult to cut or split, but vastly preferable to no wood at all. Thousands of miles of country are covered with the trailing cedar, and in winter it is found by digging in the snow.
"On leaving Krasnoyarsk," continued Mr. Hegeman, "I travelled with a gentleman who had been northward to the shores of the Arctic Ocean during the previous summer, he accompanying me in my sleigh, while his own was occupied by a servant and a goodly amount of baggage. For thirty miles there was no snow, and so we mounted our sleighs on wagons and sent them to the beginning of the snow road, while we followed in a telega a few hours after their departure. We overtook them just at the beginning of the snow road, and were glad enough to change from the telega. The vehicle had no springs, and we were shaken in it worse than if tossed in a blanket. The frozen ground was rough, and reminded me of a nutmeg-grater on a Brobdingnagian scale.