Ivan the Terrible.--Strogonoff.--Yermak, the Robber and Conqueror.--His Expeditions to Siberia.--Battle of Tobolsk.-- Yermak’s Death.--Progress of the Russians to Ochotsk.--Semen Deshnew.--Condition of the Siberian Natives under the Russian Yoke.--Voyages of Discovery in the Reign of the Empress Anna.-- Prontschischtschew.--Chariton and Demetrius Laptew.--An Arctic Heroine.--Schalaurow.--Discoveries in the Sea of Bering and in the Pacific Ocean.--The Lächow Islands.--Fossil Ivory.--New Siberia.--The wooden Mountains.--The past Ages of Siberia. In the beginning of the thirteenth century, the now huge Empire of Russia was confined to part of her present European possessions, and divided into several independent principalities, the scene of disunion and almost perpetual warfare. Thus when the country was invaded, in 1236, by the Tartars, under Baaty Khan, a grandson of the famous Gengis Khan, it fell an easy prey to its conquerors. The miseries of a foreign yoke, aggravated by intestine discord, lasted about 250 years, until Ivan Wasiljewitsch I. (1462–1505) became the deliverer of his country, and laid the foundations of her future greatness. This able prince subdued, in 1470, the _Great Novgorod_, a city until then so powerful as to have maintained its independence, both against the Russian grand princes and the Tartar khans; and, ten years later, he not only threw off the yoke of the Khans of Khipsack, but destroyed their empire. The conquest of Constantinople by the Turks placed the spiritual diadem of the ancient Cæsars on his head, and caused him, as chief of the Greek orthodox Church, to exchange his old title of Grand Prince for the more significant and imposing one of Czar. His grandson, Ivan Wasiljewitsch II., a cruel but energetic monarch, conquered Kasan in 1552, and thus completely and permanently overthrew the dominion of the Tartars. Two years later he subdued Astrakhan, and planted the Greek cross on the borders of the Caspian Sea, where until then only the Crescent had been seen. In spite of the inhuman cruelty that disgraced his character, and earned for him the name of _Terrible_, Ivan sought, like his illustrious successor, Peter the Great, to introduce the arts and sciences of Western Europe into his barbarous realm, and to improve the Russian manufactures by encouraging German artists and mechanics to settle in the country. It was in his reign that Chancellor discovered the passage from England to the White Sea, and Ivan gladly seized the opportunity thus afforded. Soon after this the port of Archangel was built, and thus a new seat was opened to civilization at the northern extremity of Europe.