Page:The frozen North; an account of Arctic exploration for use in schools (IA frozennorthaccou00hort).pdf/79

 into the Arctic ocean, and is often picked up by explorers on the North American and Greenland shores, a fact which seems to prove that the ocean currents carry it across the polar sea. At length the travelers entered the region from which this driftwood comes. This is the great forest belt of Siberia, the largest in the world, extending, with but little interruption, from the Ural mountains to the Sea of Okhotsk. It consists mainly of enormous pines, growing thickly, and untouched by the ax of the lumber-*man. Many trees are withered with age; others are fallen, and their decayed trunks are covered with mosses and lichens. The wilderness is so vast that a man might wander hundreds of miles without meeting a human being.

Beyond the forest belt lie the fertile plains, which are partly cultivated and which supply Europe with wheat. Nordenskjöld visited these plains, or steppes, and then proceeded homeward overland, by way of St. Petersburg. The next year, 1876, Nordenskjöld made a second voyage from Sweden to the mouth of the Yenisei river, proving beyond a doubt that there is a sea route from the Atlantic to the mouth of the great Siberian river. For this achievement he was regarded by Russia as a national benefactor and publicly thanked.

Nordenskjöld hoped that the rich produce of central Asia, the gold, silver, copper, iron, and coal, the ivory, timber, wheat, and furs, might now be shipped through the rivers to the Arctic ocean and thence to Europe. The dangers of navigation through the ice, however, are so great that it is doubtful whether this route can ever become an important one for purposes of commerce.

Nordenskjöld was not yet satisfied with the work he had accomplished in the Arctic regions. He longed to do what Arctic explorers had been trying to do for three hun