286 



THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 



[chap 



short distance south of Yefremov Kamen begins the veritable 

 tundra, a woodless plain, interrupted by no mountain heights, 

 with small lakes scattered over it, and narrow valleys crossing 

 it, which often make an excursion on the apparently level plain 

 exceedingly tiresome. 



As is the case with all the other Siberian rivers running from 

 south to north,^ the western strand of the Yenisej, wherever it 

 is formed of loose, earthy layers, is also quite low and often 

 marshy, while on the other hand the eastern strand consists of 

 a steep bank, ten to twenty metres high, which north of the 



RIVER VIEW ON THE YENISEJ. 



(From a drawing by A. N. Lumistriim.) 



limit of trees is distributed in a very remarkable way into 

 pyramidal pointed mounds. Numerous shells of Crustacea 

 .found here, belonging to species which still live in the Polar 

 Sea, show that at least the upper earthy layer of the tundra 



1 For the northern heniisi^here it is a general rule that where rivers 

 flow through loose, eartliy strata in a direction deviating considerably 

 from that of the parallels of latitude, the right bank, when one stands 

 facing the mouth of the river, is high, and the left Ioav. The cause 

 of this is the globular form of tlie earth and its rotation, which gives 

 rivers flowing north a tendency towards the east, and to rivers flowing 

 south a tendency to the west. This tendency is resisted by the bank, 

 but it is gradually eaten into and washed aAvay by degrees, so that the 

 river bed, in the course of thousands of years, is shifted in the direction 

 indicated. 



