Ethnology.—The majority of the population in the Siberian Area is Russian, but there are still survivals of earlier immigrants. Of the Palaeo-Siberians, the most interesting are the Yenisei Ostyaks living along the Yenisei and its tributaries from Yeniseisk to the Lower Tunguska, and most numerous about Sumarokovo, near the confluence of the Stony Tunguska. They are probably a remnant of the primitive aborigines of Siberia, and their race and language are unrelated to any other. They are in no way connected with the Ostyaks of the Ob basin, and are not Mon golian in appearance. They are fairer than the other Yenisei races and sometimes have long, oval faces and fine hair. They call themselves Tindigyet, Kanacket or Din (people), and live in birch bark tents and use hollowed trees for boats. They are a hunting and fishing people and apparently came from the Tom basin, where some place names belong to their language.
Of the Neo-Siberians, the Samoyedes are the most widespread. They have migrated from the Altai, driven north by the Turco Tatars in the 5th century A.D., and may be the descendants of the people whose civilization can be traced in the Upper Yenisei. They are closely related to the Finno-Ugrians and Samoyede may be a corruption of Suomi, the name the Finns give to their native land. The three chief branches in the Siberian Area are the Tavgi reindeer nomads of the Taimyr region, the hunting Ostyak Samoyedes between the taiga and the tundra, and the fishing and hunting Samoyedes along the banks of the Yenisei. They are meso- to brachycephalic, have straight black hair, sallow skin, narrow oblique eyes and broad flat faces and noses. They are short, stout and muscular. Related to them are the Beltirs of the Abakansk steppe, the Kaibals of the Upper Yenisei, the Kamassins of Kainsk, the Karagasses, Motors, and Soyots of the Sayan district. These southern peoples are being absorbed ; they frequently speak Tatar and have become settled cultivators or herdsmen. Of the Tatars, the chief branches are those of the Baraba steppe and the Chulim river, who are gradually becoming Russianized, the Altai Tatars, including the Teleuts or Telengites of the Kuznetsk district, the Chern or Black Forest Tatars of the Biya river, and the Tatars of the Abakansk steppe. The Tatars of the Altai mountains are successful cattle and horse breeders, and have large flocks of sheep and goats. There are some Tungusic tribes between the Lower and Middle Tunguska, the best known being the Chapogir. Their original home was Manchuria and they are of the Ural-Altaic group to which the Manchus belong, and are nomad reindeer breeders. The Russian population is mainly settled in the rich agricultural belt through which the trans-Siberian railway passes.
round Omsk, especially to the south, and in the region to the south of the railway from Lake Chany eastwards to Tomsk. Eastward from that region there are scattered patches along the railway, and along the courses of the Upper Yenisei and its tributaries, especially in the Abakan and Tuba valleys. From Irkutsk a belt of cultivation extends along the Angara and its tributaries as far north as lat. 55° N. The chief crops are wheat, rye, barley, potatoes, flax, hemp, sunflower seed, beans and grasses. In the Minusinsk district beet is successfully grown and there are beet sugar factories ; water melons also thrive. In Irkutsk rye is the predominant crop. The sandy black soils of the Kainsk and Mariinsk districts near Tomsk, and of the Altai favour wheat production, as does the black earth of the Baraba steppe, and wheat in these districts forms 5o to 75% of the harvest. The brown, ess fertile soils of Tomsk are favourable to barley and spring rye. Winter rye and oats flourish east of Tomsk. The long winter and slight snowfall everywhere make spring corn a better crop than winter corn, and fruit growing is rarely successful. Makhorka tobacco is grown along the Irtysh, south of Omsk, and supplies the Omsk tobacco factory.
Of wild produce, the cones of the Pinus Cembra of the northern Tomsk and Mariinsk districts and of the mountain regions of Biisk and Kuznetsk find a ready market in the oil pressing fac tories of Tomsk ; bilberries, cranberries and dried mushrooms are also exported. The introduction of agricultural machinery and of fertilizers is improving the harvest. Novo-Sibirsk and Omsk are the chief centres of distribution, and there is a machine-testing station at Novo-Sibirsk. Grain elevators are increasingly common. Most grain is exported unmilled, but Tomsk, Biisk, Barnaul and Novo-Sibirsk have extensive milling industries. Freightage costs militate against the export of Siberian grain. Dairying is the most productive occupation, though only introduced in 1893. There are technical dairy schools at Omsk, Kainsk, Barnaul and Zmyeinogorsk, in addition to a central laboratory at Tomsk and other small local laboratories. The reasons for its success are its small bulk which lessens transport difficulty, and the fact that Siberian milk contains a high proportion of fat owing to the rich pasture; the average yield is 1 lb. of butter to 20.05 lb. milk as against 1 lb. to 28 lb. in Denmark. Ice trucks for butter leave Novo-Sibirsk several times a week during the summer and collect from the various butter transit centres en route. Siberian cheese is increasingly finding its way on to the market. East of Kras noyarsk dairy farming is of little importance; the cattle are few in number, small, and yield little milk.