sets in. It will often freeze at night in the middle of July; and
after the 10th of August the sear leaf begins to fall, and in a
few days all are gone, except perhaps the foliage of the larch.
The snow will even sometimes settle early in August on the still
leafy branches, bending and breaking them with its weight. Below
the surface of the ground, winter reigns uninterrupted even by
the hottest summers.

With its vast extent and varied climate, Siberia naturally embraces
several vegetable zones, differing more from each other even than
those of Europe. The southern Steppes have a characteristic and
well-marked flora, forming a continuation of that of the Aral,
Caspian and Volga plains. The treeless northern _tundras_ also
constitute a vegetable domain as sharply defined as the desert
itself, while between these two zones of Steppe and _tundra_ the
forest region of Europe stretches, with many subdivisions, west
and east right across the continent. Of these subdivisions the
chief are those of the Ob, Yenisei, Lena, and Amur basins.

Beyond the northern _tundras_ and southern Steppes by far the greatest
space is occupied by the forest zone. From the Urals to Kamchatka
the dense _taiga_, or woodlands are interrupted only by the streams,
a few natural glades and some tracts under cultivation. The term
_taiga_ is used in a general way for all lands under timber, but
east of the Altai it is applied more especially to the moist and
spongy region overgrown with tangled roots and thickets, where the
_mari_, or peat bogs, and marshes alternate with the _padi_, or
narrow ravines. The miners call by this name the wooded mountains
where they go in search of auriferous sands. But everywhere the
_taiga_ is the same dreary forest, without grass, birds, or insects,
gloomy and lifeless, and noiseless but for the soughing of the
wind and crackling of the branches.

The most common tree in the _taiga_ is the larch, which best resists
the winter frost and summer chills. But the Siberian woodlands also
include most of the trees common to temperate Europe--the linden,
alder, juniper, service, willow, aspen, poplar, birch, cherry,
apricot--whose areas are regulated according to the nature of the
soil, the elevation or aspect of the land. Towards the south-east,
on the Chinese frontier, the birch is encroaching on the indigenous
species, and the natives regard this as a sure prognostic of the
approaching rule of the "White Tsar."

Confla