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Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3797, 28 February 1881, Page 2

According to St, James' Magazine, Siberia is a singularly misunderstood region. Richer by far than Canada, it enjoys a climate neither warmer in summer nor colder in winter. In all the Dominion there is no soil like the black earth along the Obi and. Yennessei; and even the lumberman of the Ottawa, the St. Lawrence and the Fraser would find himself in an Elysium among the forests that line the banks of the great rivers which intersect Siberia from the borders of China to the shores of the Polar Sea. Yet in this fine country with resources greater than Western America to which thousands are yearly fleeing from overcrowded Europe, land is a drug, and owing to the difficulty of getting anything oufc, produce is almost valueless, and foreign goods exorbitant in price. Isr the Valley of the Yenessei dried fish c&Hbe | bought for " next to nothing," grouse are I 7d a brace, capital beef 2Jd a pound, and at Krasnoyarsk a cargo of good wheat could be obtained for about 25s the hundred weight. Corn- and hay are, indeed, so cheap that Mr Seebohm, a recenfe traveller, paid for post horses over the great steppe between Tomsk and Tjumen only one half-penny per mile. At Tenesseisk a ship's mast of hard larch 60ft long, is worth a guinea. On the Obi live ducks fetch five farthings apiece, the large fish called " yass " IJd a pair, and pike a farthing each. Young calves can be bought in villages away from the great overland route for 6d each ; and in the rich black earth country, immediately north of the Altai, land is leased for 3|d per acre. On the other hand, a ton of salt, which can be bought in Liverpool for 15s, commands on the Obi or Yenessei £15, and on the Lena a still higher price.

A gentleman was examining an umbrella and commenting upon its fine quality. " Yes," said a person present, "he fancies everything he sees." "And," added a third party, " is iuclined to seize everything he fancies."

Mosquitoes will not enter a room whew there is an uncorked phial of penny. royal. . J