In a few years the Siberian railway will have completely
dissipated it. Much more valuable is the far wider zone called
the _taiga_, the most wonderful belt of forest on the surface of
the earth. I can testify to the profound impression of mingled
mystery and delight produced on the mind by riding a thousand miles
through Russian forests as they still exist in European Russia,
where myriads of square miles in the north and centre of the land
are covered by birch, spruce, larch, pine, and oak plantations.
Where do these forests begin and where do they have an end? That
is the traveller's thought. He finds that they thicken and broaden,
and deepen as they sweep in their majestic gloom across the Urals,
and make up for thousands of miles the grand Siberian arboreal belt.
In this _taiga_ the Tsar possesses wealth beyond all computation;
and the railway will put it actually at his disposal. The third
zone, the most valuable of all, is that which mainly constitutes
Southern Siberia. It is the region of the Steppes, that endless
natural garden which again makes Siberia an incomparable land.
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