30 STEVENSON— INTERRELATIONS OF THE FOSSIL FUELS. 



most dreary, swampy plain, the road being a wooden causeway in 

 the latter half of the distance. Forty miles of swamp were en- 

 countered in the 80 miles east from the Lena River. Cochrane 

 thinks that Siberia is an impregnable province, as, owing to the vast 

 extent of the swamps, a few hours of work would render any one 

 of the roads impassable. 



Atkinson^"* has given some information respecting western 

 Siberia between Ekatherineburg and Tomsk. In going from Omsk 

 to Kainsk, a distance of about 200 miles, he crossed much swampy 

 area, continuous at one time for 31 miles. There are many lakes 

 south from Kainsk in an area of 150 by 40 miles, all of them sur- 

 rounded by broad belts of reeds. Alorass prevails between the lakes 

 as well as for nearly 100 miles farther southward. 



Nordenskiold's^^ references to peat are merely incidental. His 

 studies were along the coast and excursions into the interior were, 

 for the greater part, comparatively short. The plain on the Yalmal 

 peninsula, west from the mouth of the Yenisei, is tundra-like, full 

 of marshes and streams ; on Taimur land farther west, the plains are 

 covered with a continuous, very green vegetation, a mixture of 

 grasses and allied plants with mosses and lichens. In the Gyda pen- 

 insula, where Schmidt obtained remains of Mammoth in 1866, N.L. 

 70°, the stratum containing the remains rests on marine clay and is 

 covered with sands alternating with beds of decayed plant material, 

 completely corresponding with peat deposits formed in lakes of the 

 tundra. The description of the Chukch peninsula, in northeast 

 Siberia, is very similar to that given by Cochrane. 



Incidental references in a description by the Comite geologique 

 of Russia^*^ give some conception of the marsh-covered area on both 

 sides of the Transsiberian railway. The Steppe de Baraba, between 

 the Irtych and the Ob, about 10 degrees of longitude, is described as 

 differing from steppes at the west in that it has many great marshes 



1* T. W. Atkinson, " Oriental and Western Siberia," New York, 1858, pp. 

 151, 153, '156. 



15 A. E. Nordenskiold, "The Voyage of the Vega," New York, 1882, pp. 

 154- 253, 309, 422. 



1^ " Apergu des explorations geologiques et minieres le long du Trans- 

 siberien," Public par le Comite Geologique de Russie, 1900, pp. 4, 52, 63, ii.i. 



