to Turukhansk, and quite a fleet of them was directed to the mouth of the Obi, hitherto somewhat neglected on account of the shallowness of the water. Moreover, an attempt has recently been made to create an export trade between Siberia and England, and a cargo of corn brought by the company’s barges to the point where their ships are anchored was soon afterwards happily transported to Europe. In 1898 the same company met with identical success. Thus far this enterprise has been very fortunate. Needless to say, the Kara Sea and the straits which border upon it are, up to the beginning of August, blocked with ice, concentrated there by the different currents, and the season during which navigation is possible lasts only from six weeks to two months, between August and September. The ships used in this particular service must leave Europe a little beforehand, so as to await at the Straits of Kara a favourable opportunity to penetrate to the mouth of the rivers, ascend them, discharge and recharge, and start again as quickly as possible. The time is exceedingly limited during which the barges can transport their cargoes into the interior and reascend the Siberian rivers ere these are frozen over, and this especially is the case on the Yenissei, whose currents, even at Krasnoyarsk, are not more than six miles an hour, attaining, however, twelve miles between Krasnoyarsk and Yenissei. Therefore it is impossible to perform more than seventy to eighty miles a day, and it must be remembered that between Turukhansk and Krasnoyarsk the distance is about 1,000 miles, and that in the beginning of October navigation is suspended. Under these conditions it is not likely that more than one service a year can ever be organized, although possibly, when the peculiarities of the icy regions of the Kara Sea are better known, it might be otherwise. It should also be mentioned that the vessels engaged in this particular trade have not been built expressly for it, but are ordinary cargo-boats, which can be engaged during the rest of the year trading in pleasanter climes. If the present company establishes itself definitely it will be extremely fortunate, not only for the town of Krasnoyarsk, but for the whole of Siberia, which will thus be able to export, by a very cheap route, the excess of its harvests and perhaps also some of its superb wood, and receive in exchange from Western Europe manufactured articles and machinery, hitherto exclusively supplied from Moscow. Therefore the opening of the Trans-Siberian Railway, combined with the passage of navigation through the Arctic Sea, will necessarily benefit Asiatic Russia very considerably, and help that country to obtain freer communication with the rest of the world, and thereby enable it eventually to become completely modernized. CHAPTER IX THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILWAY