نسخة مذيلة من "بلاد فارس والشأن الفارسي" بقلم جورج كرزون، مع أوراق مدرجة [ظ‎‎١‎٥‎٠] (١٨١٤/٣٠٣)

with an account of the writer’s experiences with the American army in eastern
Siberia in 1919-20. In this part the personal note is much in evidence, and
there are, in addition to the portrait of the author, full-page plates of his
military decorations. Of the rest of the booh about 100 pages are devoted
to pious platitudes on the evils of war, the hope of universal peace, and
America’s example to the world j and about 150 pages to an account of
Siberia’s resources, incomplete, far from accurate, and dealing mainly with
the Amur region and Sakhalin. It is clear that in spite of his avowed
attempt to gather “ every possible source of information ” the author was
ill-equipped for his task. To begin with, he uses a Mercator map to illustrate
the extent of Siberia, thus exaggerating its area. He eulogizes the climate
of Siberia, c< in all respects like that of the United States, citing merely the
temperatures of July, saying nothing of the length of the Siberian winter, and
disposing of the low winter temperatures as “grossly exaggerated.” He
writes as if latitude alone decided climate, and reminds us that “ Vladivostok
has the same latitude as New York, Spain, and the Mediterranean, the
inference being that all have the same climate. Blagoveshchensk and
Omsk have considerably higher year-around temperatures ” than London
(p. 326). “The world knows little of such surprising facts.” We agree.
Evidently climate is not the author’s special study. The Amur river is hardly
3000 miles long even if head streams are included, and so cannot be navi
gable for 8541 miles (p. 328). The “ Ob-Yenisei” waterway may exist on the
map, but facts are ignored when the author implies the possibility of through
navigation from Irbit to Kyakhta. A little knowledge of Siberia would have
saved him from that mistake. The natives of Siberia are mentioned only as
“ good workers, hospitable, and not knowing the value of money, their labour
is cheap.” The railway map is incomplete, and the town map includes Ust
Yansk with thirty houses and omits Novo-Nikolaevsk with over 60,000
inhabitants, Tyumen, Barnaul, and Biisk. The author seems to think that
Kamchatka is devoted to “ prisons,” and that the “ exile mines ” are or were
in the Taimir peninsula. The chapters on timber are fairly full, but those
on minerals are less satisfactory. Owing to the lack of system in the ortho
graphy it is impossible to locate on an atlas the various coal deposits
enumerated : the map provided is merely an outline sketch. The chapter on
Sakhalin coal (Pilevo river) reads like a company prospectus. In fact, Mr.
Channing would seem to see in Siberia merely a land for exploitation :
“Siberia stands to-day rich, unsettled, and unexploited—as did our United
States, now vast and glorious, a century or more ago”: but he has no con
structive policy to offer. Many valuable books have been written on various
parts of Siberia, but Mr. Channing appears to have discovered only “ a scant
dozen of writers and lecturers” on the country. These he condemns for
giving a false picture of Siberia, eulogizing as the only writer who tells the
truth Mr. Stefansson, who we believe claims no personal knowledge of