Some of these new places do not entirely lack artistic beauty, and certainly they all have the same characteristic of appearing very national, holding firmly to the native taste and following the Muscovite style of architecture. Everything, it must be confessed, is in keeping with the surroundings, and at the same time practical and adequate to the locality. The new settler builds a small house of wood, and at the same time tries to make it look neat by carving it elaborately if he can, and never fails to paint the wood in all kinds of bright colours. V CENTRAL SIBERIA From unlimited pastures we pass to endless forests. For days we are surrounded by magnificent vegetation, including beautiful trees of varied hues. There are dark oaks and pale elms, copper beeches and silver birches, the colour of which is just turning. The foliage is fading, and as one pierces through their depths the leaves shake and rustle and pour down in golden showers. Beautiful this Siberian woodland is! Unknown, unpenetrated, striking in its virgin prime. [Illustration: RAILWAY CHURCH SERVICE "A rolling Greek basilica" To face page 38] The railway cuts through in a straight line for hundreds of miles, and there is nothing to be seen on either side but centenarian trees and feathery ferns. What a field of exploration for a botanist! What a collection of beautiful herbs and mosses! What exquisite wild flowers! The colour of them is so deep and glorious, and the green of the grass is of the richest shade. Many of the species are scarcely known yet, and it is quite astonishing to find, in these far-away regions, plants belonging to families of quite different latitudes. If the flora is so surprising, the fauna is even more so: animals of every size and of every description, from large bears to tiny squirrels. There are many kinds of quadrupeds: wolves, foxes, snow-leopards, wild goats, martens, sables, ermines, and all the innumerable members of the feline race. But what are even more interesting than the animal nature are the fossils found along the banks of the rivers and deep in the gloom of the earth. Some magnificent specimens of antediluvian skeletons have been excavated, and these are zealously kept in the museums of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Irkutsk. And for the ornithologist it is a perfect land for research. The birds and their lives seem to have in Siberia a most interesting past, and the laws of migration offer a special field of observation. Some come from as far as Australia, while others choose for their winter home New Zealand. The theories explaining this mystery of nature are rather conflicting, and scientists have devised various explanations of these far-distant wanderings. The butterflies and beetles are unique also; in fact, it is a world in itself lost in far-away Siberia.