Note 3 — Chapter XXV · YAKUTSK.

It is well known that in the northern parts of Siberia the ground is always frost-bound, but to what depth is not so easily determined. During the stay, however, of Mr. Erman at Yakutsk it happened that a resident was digging a well, down which the man of science went, and pronounced that he found the soil frozen to a depth of 50 feet below the surface. So accustomed, however, do the natives become to the cold, that with the thermometer at unheard-of degrees below freezing point, the Yakute women, with bare arms, stand in the open-air markets, chattering and joking as pleasantly as if in genial spring. Inside their houses, in the heated part of the rooms, they get the temperature up to 65° or 75°; but one day, when the thermometer stood at 9°, Mr. Erman found the children of both sexes running about quite naked, not only in the house, but even in the open air. In fact, the great cold is not thought a grievance in Siberia, for a man clothed in furs may sleep at night in an open sledge when the mercury freezes in the thermometer; and, wrapped up in his pelisse, he can lie without inconvenience on the snow under a thin tent when the temperature of the air is 30° below zero.