12 Mammals of Eastern Asia 
south close to the Sea of Okhotsk, runs at a distance of about 
100 miles more or less parallel to its shores. At the southwest 
corner of that sea, where the coast-line turns abruptly east, the 
Stanovoi Range, continuing westsouthwest, merges into the 
Yablonoi Mountains (east of Lake Baikal), which in turn unite 
through a vast complexity of ranges with the great Altai Moun- 
tain system of central Asia. This huge elevated axis, stretching 
some 4000 miles from northeast to southwest, separates the 
large river systems of the Omolon, the Indigurka, the Lena, the 
Yenisei, all emptying into the Arctic Ocean, from the southern 
and eastern rivers. 
East of the Altai Mountains and south of the Yablonoi, a 
virtually land-locked 4000-foot plateau extends into the Gobi 
Desert of Mongolia. The eastern edge of the Gobi is marked by 
the Hsing-an (Khingan) Mountains, 5000 feet, running north- 
south, the northern tip of which thrusts up into Manchuria 
and is separated from the combined Stanovoi and Yablonoi 
Mountains only by the valley of the Amur River. 
To the south the Gobi and its subsidiary the Ordos Desert, 
south of the bend of the Yellow River, give place gradually to 
less arid country built of wind-deposited dust, called loess, that 
also stands several thousand feet above sea-level. 
The Hsing-an (Khingan) Range, east of the Gobi, is con- 
nected by a low divide running east to the isolated eastern moun- 
tain system of the Maritime Province. These coastal mountains, 
named the Sikhota Mountains, reach as high as 8000 feet, and 
extend from the south shore of the Sea of Okhotsk to north 
Korea, with a break at Vladivostok. The mountains of the 
Shantung Peninsula, rising from 3000 to 4000 (one, 5000) 
feet above sea-level, are to be regarded as a southwest continua- 
tion of that east Manchurian system, part of which has 
foundered and lies beneath the waters of the Gulf of Pechili. 
In the northern part of Manchuria the Amur River, rising 
in the northern Gobi and among the east slopes of the Yablonoi 
