Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/77



THE FLOWERY PLAINS OF TOBÓLSK

N crossing the boundary line between the provinces of Perm and Tobólsk, we entered a part of the Russian empire whose magnitude and importance are almost everywhere underestimated. People generally seem to have the impression that Siberia is a sub-arctic colonial province about as large as Alaska; that it is everywhere cold, barren, and covered during the greater part of the year with snow; and that its sparse population is composed chiefly of exiles and half-wild aborigines, with a few soldiers and Grovernment officials here and there to guard and superintend the ostrógs, the prisons, and the mines. Very few Americans, if I may judge from the questions asked me, fully grasp and appreciate the fact that Siberia is virtually a continent in itself, and presents continental diversities of climate, scenery, and vegetation. We are apt, unconsciously, to assume that because a country is generally mapped upon a small scale it must necessarily occupy only a small part of the surface of the globe; but the conclusion does not follow from the premises. If a geographer were preparing a general atlas of the world, and should use, in drawing Siberia, the same scale that is used in Stieler's "Hand Atlas" for England, he would have to make the Siberian page of his book nearly twenty feet in width to accommodate his map. If he should use for Siberia the scale adopted by Colton, in his "Atlas of the