In respect to the social development of the Yakut, Von Middendorf's distinctions are the most suggestive as well as the most critical. The southernmost Yakuts have the horse, the middlemost the rein-deer, the northernmost the dog. The manners of the southern ones are best known; and these are essentially pastoral. Besides the breeding of herds of horses, the Russian fur-trade has developed an industrial form of the hunter-state; so that, amongst the Yakuts, property accumulates, and we have a higher civilization than will be found elsewhere in the same latitude; Finland and Norway alone being excepted. Other circumstances make the Yakuts an ethnological study. They are not only Turks who are not Mahometan, but their Christianity is still imperfect: hence they represent the Shamanism of the Turk before he became Moslemized. The details of the Yakut creed, sufficiently numerous to form, along with those of the still pagan Ugrians and Samöeids, an elaborate picture of an old religion, which, in its _essential_ characters, was common to all the families of High Asia and Siberia, may be best found in Ermann.[30] The simple fact of its representing an early religion, is all that can here be noticed. THE UGRIAN BRANCH OF THE TURANIAN STOCK. 1. _Present distribution--continuous._--West and East--From Norway to the Yenisey. North and South (South-East)--From the North Cape to the Russian governments of Simbirsk, Saratof, and Astrakhan. The Volga south of its confluence with the Kama. 2. _Isolated portion._--Hungary. 3. _Ancient distribution._--Further southwards along the whole frontier, _i.e._, in Scandinavia, Russia, and Siberia. The Eastward extension probably less than at present. 4. As portions of a _mixed_ population beyond their proper area--In Sweden and Norway. _Religion._--Lutheranism, Romanism, Greek Church, Imperfect Christianity, Shamanism. _Physical conformation._--Chief departure from the Mongol type, the frequency of blue eyes, and light (red) hair. _Conterminous with._--1. Goths of the Scandinavian group in Norway and Sweden; 2. Slavonians in Russia; 3. Lithuanians in Esthonia; 4, 5, 6. Turks, Yeniseians, and Tungús in Siberia. In Europe, in contact with the North Sea. East of Archangel, separated therefrom by the Samöeids. _Divisions._--1. Trans-Uralian Ugrians.--Between the Ural Mountains and the Yenisey. _Voguls_ and _Ostiaks_. 2. Permian Finns.--_Permians_, _Siranians_, _Votiaks_. 3. Finns of the Volga.--_Morduins_, _Tcheremiss_, _Tshuvatsh_. 4. Finlanders of Finland. 5. Esthonians of Esthonia. 6. Laplanders of Sweden and Finmark. 7. Majiars of Hungary. 1. THE VOGULS.