We think of Siberia as a land buried in snow most of the year. There is snow in the foothills of the Urals and beyond, and far to the north, but early in February, traveling from Chita to Vladivostok, a distance of some two thousand miles, I saw brown plains from horizon to horizon day after day without a patch of snow the size of my hand. There is very cold weather, it is true, but with proper clothing, homes properly heated, trains and shops properly equipped for keeping out the cold, the low temperatures do not cause much discomfort. However, it is not comfortable to remain out of doors very long during the bitter cold. The seventy-two-below weather registered in Chita, and mentioned elsewhere in this book was not so terrible as it sounds, when there was absence of wind. The air in Chita was very rare, as that city has an elevation of nearly five thousand feet above sea level, and is just below the High Plain of Vitim. The climate is invigorating. * * * * * Transportation is the great problem of Siberia. I have heard it said by Colonel Emerson, general manager of the Great Northern Railway, that the Trans-Siberian Railway loses money on freight charges of five cents per ton mile. Our American railways operated before the war at good profits with freight charges computed in mills per ton mile. Graft and ignorance, waste and laziness, even before the Bolshevist troubles, sapped the life from the organization. The line was strewn with scrap metal, from trucks with flat wheels to all the small parts which break on trains. The Japanese bought this scrap as junk, remilled it at home and sold it back to the Russians at from five to ten times its cost as scrap. The repair shops ran at a very low point of efficiency, and without modern machinery--bolts, for instance, being made by hand! The whole system appeared to be run for no other purpose than creating jobs, and was over-manned. Business is done in Siberia at a high margin of profit in order to offset losses by theft. It is estimated that twenty-five per cent must be allowed to cover loss by theft. Goods left in the customs house over night under the care of watchmen are not always found intact in the morning--the cases are opened and goods abstracted. A car-load of shoes shipped to an inland city arrived apparently safe, with the seals on the cars unbroken. When opened, the car was found to be full of cord-wood. A person unfamiliar with the country had better avoid doing business on a small scale there. An American who came to Chita with fifty suits of ready-to-wear clothing, had to part with about half of his lot to pay graft.