e governors-general,
Western Siberia and Eastern Siberia; and the Amur region, which
last comprises also the Pacific coast region and Kamchatka.

_Climate of Russia in Europe_.--Notwithstanding the fact that Russia
extends from north to south through twenty-six degrees of latitude,
the climate of its different portions, apart from the Crimea and the
Caucasus, presents a striking uniformity. The aerial currents--cyclones,
anti-cyclones and dry south-east winds--extend over wide surfaces
and cross the flat plains freely. Everywhere we find a cold winter
and a hot summer, both varying in their duration, but differing
little in the extremes of temperature recorded.

Throughout Russia the winter is of long continuance. The last days
of frost are experienced for the most part in April, but also in
May to the north of fifty-five degrees. The spring is exceptionally
beautiful in central Russia; late as it usually is, it sets in with
vigour and develops with a rapidity which gives to this season in
Russia a special charm, unknown in warmer climates; and the rapid
melting of snow at the same time raises the rivers, and renders
a great many minor streams navigable for a few weeks. But a return
of cold weather, injurious to vegetation, is observed throughout
central and eastern Russia between May 18 and 24, so that it is only
in June that warm weather sets in definitely, reaching its maximum
in the first half of July (or of August on the Black Sea coast). The
summer is much warmer than might be supposed; in south-eastern
Russia it is much warmer than in the corresponding latitudes of
France, and really hot weather is experienced everywhere. It does
not, however, prevail for long, and in the first half of September
the first frosts begin to be experienced on the middle Urals; they
reach western and southern Russia in the first days of October,
and are felt on the Caucasus about the middle of November. The
temperature descends so rapidly that a month later, about October 10
on the middle Urals and November 15 throughout Russia the thermometer
ceases to rise above the freezing-point. The rivers rapidly freeze;
towards November 20 all the streams of the White Sea basin are
covered with ice, and so remain for an average of 167 days; those
of the Baltic, Black Sea, and Caspian basins freeze later, but
about December 20 nearly all the rivers of the country are highways
for sledges. The Volga remains frozen for a period varying between