It is now more than three hundred years since the Cossack robber Yermak invaded Siberia, and more than two centuries since that vast section of Northern Asia was added to the Russian empire. The great river Amur, flowing far through Eastern Siberia to the Pacific, was discovered in 1643 by a party of Cossack hunters, who launched their boats on this magnificent stream and sailed down it to the sea. It was Chinese soil through which it ran, its waters flowing through the province of Manchuria, the native land of the emperors of China. But to this the Russian pioneers paid little heed. They invaded Chinese soil, built forts on the Amur, and for forty years war went on. In the end they were driven out, and China came to her own again. Thus matters stood until the year 1854. Six years before, an officer with four Cossacks had been sent down the river to spy out the land. They never returned, and not a word could be had from China as to their fate. In the year named the Russians explored the river in force. China protested, but did not act, and the whole vast territory north of the stream was proclaimed as Russian soil. Forts were built to make good the claim, and China helplessly yielded to the gigantic steal. Since then Russia has laid hands on an extensive slice of Chinese territory which lies on the Pacific coast far to the south of the Amur, and has forcibly taken possession of the Japanese island of Saghalien. Her avaricious eyes are fixed on the kingdom of Corea, and the whole of Manchuria may yet become Russian soil. Siberia is by no means the inhospitable land of ice which the name suggests to our minds. That designation applies well to its northern half, but not to the Siberia of the south. Here are vast fertile plains, prolific in grain, which need only the coming railroad facilities to make this region the granary of the Russian empire. The great rivers and the numerous lakes of the country abound in valuable fish; large forests of useful timber are everywhere found; fur-bearing animals yield a rich harvest in the icy regions of the north; the mineral wealth is immense, including iron, gold, silver, platinum, copper, and lead; precious stones are widely found, among them the diamond, emerald, topaz, and amethyst; and of ornamental stones may be named malachite, jasper, and porphyry, from which magnificent vases, tables, and other articles of ornament are made. The region on the Amur and its tributaries is particularly valuable and rich, and a great population is destined in the future to find an abiding-place in this vast domain.