ure from
Yakutsk to the Lena estuary, is the meteorological centre round
which the atmosphere revolves. Here are to a large extent prepared
the elements of the climate of West Europe.

Travellers speak of the Siberian winters with mingled feelings of
terror and rapture. An infinite silence broods over the land--all
is buried in deep sleep. The animals hibernate in their dens, the
streams have ceased to flow, disappearing beneath the ice and snow;
the earth, of a dazzling whiteness in the centre of the landscape,
but grey in the distance, nowhere offers a single object to arrest
the gaze. The monotony of endless space is broken by no abrupt
lines or vivid tints. The only contrast with the dull expanse of
land is the everlasting azure sky, along which the sun creeps at a
few degrees only above the horizon. In these intensely cold latitudes
it rises and sets with hard outlines, unsoftened by the ruddy haze
elsewhere encircling it on the edge of the horizon. Yet such is the
strength of its rays that the snow melts on the housetop exposed
to its glare, while in the shade the temperature is 40 deg. to 50 deg.
below freezing point. At night, when the firmament is not aglow
with the many-tinted lights and silent coruscations of the aurora
borealis, the zodiacal light and the stars still shine with intense
brightness.

To this severe winter, which fissures the surface and rends the
rocks of the rivers into regular basalt-like columns, there succeeds
a sudden and delightful spring. So instantaneous is the change that
nature seems as if taken by surprise and rudely awakened. The delicate
green of the opening leaf, the fragrance of the budding flowers,
the intoxicating balm of the atmosphere, the radiant brightness of
the heavens, all combine to impart to mere existence a voluptuous
gladness. To Siberians visiting the temperate climes of Western
Europe, spring seems to be unknown beyond their lands. But these
first days of new life are followed by a chill, gusty and changeful
interval, arising from the atmospheric disturbances caused by the
thawing of the vast snowy wastes. A relapse is then experienced
analogous to that too often produced in England by late east winds.
The apple blossom is now nipped by the night frosts falling in the
latter part of May. Hence no apples can be had in East Siberia,
although the summer heats are otherwise amply sufficient for the
ripening of fruit. After the fleeting summer, winter weather again