The forest belt is so immense that the wooded plains of the Amazon shrink into comparative insignificance. For the most part these great forests are composed of evergreen trees, the fir, pine, larch, and pitch-pine predominating. In many localities there are hundreds of square miles of perfectly straight pine trees of great height, where neither man nor beast could find the way out. Even experienced trappers dare not enter these forests without blazing trees along their pathway, so that they may be able to extricate themselves by retracing their steps. In these huge evergreen solitudes there is an inexhaustible supply of the finest timber in the world. In every sense of the word they are solitudes; for one may travel scores of miles without meeting or hearing either bird or beast. At the conclusion of the war between Japan and Russia it was stipulated that Russia should cede to Japan the southern part of Sakhalin Island. The cession was made in 1905. During the following two years a large number of Russians and Japanese were employed in marking the boundary, by cutting through the forest from east to west a strip one hundred miles long and twelve miles wide. The fir forests of the Japanese portion, covering more than three million acres, are alone estimated to be worth forty-five million dollars, to say nothing about the extensive coal deposits and the large areas of land available for tillage. Of the native peoples of northern Siberia the Yakuts are the most numerous. They resemble both the Eskimos and the Lapps. They occupy several valleys, including that of the Lena River and a strip along the Arctic Ocean to the west. So inured to cold are these people, that where the temperature ranges from ninety degrees below zero to ninety-three degrees above, the adults wear light clothing in the depth of winter and the children sport naked in the snow. The desert zone includes a vast region east of the Caspian Sea and extends to the Tian Shan Mountains, which separate it from the desert of Gobi. Here, as in the Mohave Desert, are found the leafless, thickly spined forms of the cactus family. A product peculiar to Siberia and highly appreciated by the inhabitants on account of its edible qualities is the cedar nut found in all of the northern forest region. So great is the demand for these nuts that in Tomsk alone thousands of tons are sold each year. They resemble pine nuts. A gum called larch-tree sulphur, chewed by both natives and settlers, is also obtained from these forests. Bee-keeping, especially in eastern Siberia, is an important industry which has been followed from remotest ages. The annual yield of honey is estimated to be upward of three million pounds. The camel is usually associated with the hot desert regions of the Sahara and Arabia, yet in Siberia immense numbers of camels are used. It is not an uncommon sight to see them in midwinter hauling sledges along frozen roads and ice-covered rivers.