of the tundras is best studied at Khandasa on the right bank of the Poronai 

 river, far to the south of the opening of the river Khandasa. There the dried- 

 up mosses at an eroded margin of a tundra make a transition into a brown layer of 

 the same stuff, about half a meter in thickness. Below this layer there is a dark- 

 brown peat more than 6 meters in thickness, resting upon a light-gray bed of clay. 

 Vast masses of peat, detached from such a cliff in flood, now lie upon sands and 

 pebbles of the river-bed, and look like small grass-thatched roofs of hut, when 

 first observed from a good distance by a new visitor. 



Thin layers of peat are also found on heaths, which extend on low wet 

 grounds as at several places on the 50th. Parallel, on the south of Nayoro on the 

 coast of Patience bay, and to the south of Kushunnai on the west coast, also on 

 the plain of Mitslyofka on the Susuya river, and so forth. 



The shell-mound of Soloviyof ka near Korsakoff, which consists of recent shells 

 of Östren sp., Mactra sacJialincnsis. and other forms, lies chiefly on a terrace, about 

 35 meters above the sea level, at a direct distance of less than half a kilometer 

 from the coast. This locality, which remained almrst unexplored, has this year 

 rewarded Professor S. TSUBOI with numerous finds of archaeological interest. 



Of the Older Eruptive Rocks, granite (hornblende- granitite) has been already 

 mentioned in connection with the contact metamorphism in the Palaeozoic regions, 

 where ordinary diabase is also extensive. 



Various facies of granitoid diabase are observed near Shiranushi, and on the 

 west coast of the boundary region of the 50th. Parallel. There are granular, aphanitic, 

 as well as porphyritic varieties of the same rock. Olivine is sometimes observed in 

 this eruptive. Columnar joint, with the axis perpendicular to the face of contact 

 with the underlying sedimentary rock, are observed in the similar diabase of Pilevo, 

 where the rock appears like an intrusive sheet. The same, forming a small rock in 

 the sea of Ambets, is again irregularly cracked with plane faces of fracture, 

 beautifully covered with minute scales of dark-brown mica. The contact of the 

 rock with a dark shale on the south of Pilevo seems to have exerted no influence 

 in the petrographical characters of either one of the rocks. 

 But the occurrence of gabbro is very limited. 



Ordinary diorite with its porphyritic modifications are met with on the 50th. 

 Parallel, though never found in great extent. 



Volcanic Rocks are abundant in Sakhalin, but not of such great importance 

 as those in Hokkaido. No active craters are known to exist. There are only two 

 or more conical mounts- on the otherwise quite low mountains of Ushoro, whose 



* The well-known, very conspicuous cone of Kitoushi-nupuri (or Kitoushi-pal) on the west 



