rm trend from
north to south, while in its heart lies the romantic and mysterious
Baikal, the deepest of lakes. Through the spurs of the _taiga_,
running irregularly through the lovely Steppes, passes the new
railroad, which thus taps the chief resources of the land. It will
open up the forests, the arable country land, the cattle-breeding
districts, and, above all, the mineral deposits. Here is a fine
coming opportunity for the capitalists of the world.

The Siberian railway starts at Cheliabinsk, just across the Ural
Mountains, which it reaches through Samara on the Volga from the
European side, coming over the boundary hills through Ufa, Miass
and Zlatoust. Shortly after leaving the latter town, which is the
centre of the Uralian iron industry, the train passes that pathetic
"Monument of Tears," which marks the boundary between Europe and
Asia. The triangular post of white marble, which thousands of weeping
exiles every year embrace as they pay their sad farewell to Europe,
is simply inscribed on one of its three sides, "Asia," on another,
"Europe." Passing down the eastern slopes of the Urals the train
soon reaches Cheliabinsk, running beside the Isset, a tributary
of the Irtish, one of the main branches of the grand Obi river.
On leaving Cheliabinsk, the traveller begins to realize that he
is in Siberia. In the near future this section of the line will
be traversed by many an explorer and many a hunter, who will in
summer come to seek fresh fields on the course of the Obi, to track
out towards the north the haunts of the seal, the walrus, and the
white bear. The line crosses the Tobol at Kurgan, the Ishim at
Patropavlosk, and the Irtish at Omsk, where the majestic new bridge
spans a stream of two hundred yards. The three fine rivers are
confluents of the Obi. Kurgan lies embosomed in the finest and
richest, as well as the largest pasturage in the world. The magnitude
of this undertaking may be imagined from the fact that the Yenisei
river is only reached after a ride of 2,000 miles from Cheliabinsk,
and then the traveller has not traversed half the distance across
the continent which this railroad spans.

We arrive at the main stream of the Obi when the train rolls into
the station at Kolivan. Thus Tomsk, one of the chief cities of
Siberia, is missed, for it lies further north on the Obi. In the
same way does the line ignore Tobolsk, the Siberian capital, as it
touches the Irtish far south of the city. These imp