Rapidity in laying the track on the first section was due to the fact that the line traversed an undulating plain where heavy works were not demanded. The climate for the most part was found to be analogous with that prevailing in Western Siberia, the mean temperature in summer hovering about 70 degrees, to fall to about -7.6 degrees in winter. In order that the workmen during the latter season might not be interrupted in their tasks of fashioning the stone-work for the bridges, special workshops were provided, heated with steam and stoves, and similar shelters were built over the sites of erection on the ice, where the workmen were enabled to lay the masonry in comfort. At the same time these measures permitted the cement to dry slowly instead of being frozen, only to fall to pieces with the approach of spring. As the engineers pushed farther and farther away from the European frontier, the country was found to be more and more thinly settled. Along the line of the Central Siberian railway the average population was one person per square mile, and the majority of these people were colonists who had emigrated from European Russia to practise agriculture in the East, and they were settled for the most part along the postal road to Tomsk. Under such conditions labour had to be brought from several hundreds of miles to the rear. Huge depots had to be established to house provisions and large camps formed for the employees. Furthermore, thousands of horses and hundreds of wagons were required in addition to sleighs. Roads had to be cut for the passage of these vehicles, and at various points stores of provisions and other necessaries had to be stored in deep pits dug in the ground, and covered with heavy tree-trunks to secure protection against bears and other marauders. The penetration of the dark and matted primeval forests was terrible. The ground was swampy, and in order to facilitate the advance of vehicles the soft soil had to be rendered firmer by tree-trunks laid down to form a kind of timber road. The men engaged in this essential undertaking suffered extreme privations, not only bodily, but mentally as well. The terrible solitude preyed upon their minds, while the rainfall and entire absence of the rudiments of comfort told upon their constitutions. In order to facilitate the transportation of the provisions and material from European Russia to the main depots along the line, the great waterways were utilised to the fullest extent. Boats of all descriptions took on these stores at convenient points near the Urals, such as Tioumen, and by traversing the various tributaries of the mighty Obi were able to gain numerous points along the location, where they discharged their cargoes. Thence the goods were dispatched to the scattered depots and camps by road.