TBE YAKUTSK FKONTIEK COUNTKY. 45 



ing into the Zabaikalsk region between the Vitim and the Olekma, have some summits as 

 high as this. Generally speaking, the whole of the Yakutsk region is not such a continuous 

 plain as a large portion of Western Siberia, and is even far less level than the forest and 

 tundra belts of Eastern Siberia. The whole of the southern part of the Yakutsk region, south 

 of the latitude where the Lena blends with the Aldan, is indeed fairly mountainous, and north 

 of this latitude there are also many chains of mountains. Those to the east of the Lena, 

 such as the Yerkhnoyansk chain, which seperates the Aldan from the sources of the Yana 

 and Indighirka, the mountains of Kolymsk, Alazeysk, Tak-Tayakhtakh are all more or less con- 

 nected with the Yablonoi chain, whilst those chains stretching to the west of the Lena, like 

 the Yiluisk range and the summit dead levels of tlie Vilui and the Olenek, are distinct inde^ 

 pendent upheavals. 



The geognostic composition of the mountains of the Yakutsk region is principally 

 made up of crystalline formations, granites, syenites, diorites, diabases, gneiss, crystalline 

 schists and sometimes porphyries and even trichytes, whilst in the Aldansk range, besides these 

 crystalline formations, there are also volcanic rocks such as basalts and dolerites. The slopes 

 and outlying parts of the Stanovoi chain and other ranges in the Y'akutsk region like the 

 Yiluisk mountains are principally composed of upheaved sedementary strata, partly belonging 

 to the paleozoic formations, upper siluriau, devonian and carboniferous, but more especially 

 to the secondary formations, particularly the Jurassic and partly to the tertiary. The Yakutsk 

 region is well endowed with mineral wealth. 



The silver-lead ores, iron and coal, found iu the Stanovoi mountains, are well diffused 

 over the Yakutsk region but the auriferous sand is the only substance worked, particularly 

 the rich deposits near the river Olekma and some other tributaries of the Lena. 



The Yakutsk region is abundantly watered by magnificent full rivers which are iu 

 summer the only means of communication. The gigantic Lena is 4,300 versts long and with 

 its tributaries, the Yitim, Olekma, Aldan and Vilui, forms one of the richest river systems 

 of the Old World, watering an area of over 43 thousand square geographical miles. Unfortun- 

 ately the Lena system possesses even to a greater extent the same disadvantages as the 

 systems of the Yenessei and Obi, as they all flow to the north and fall into the Arctic Oceau, 

 which cannot be navigated with any regularity. It is also maile up of two enormous com- 

 ponent branches, the Lena and the Aldau, wliicli nu'ct still farther nurtli than the 

 branches of the Obi, in a country quite unsuitable to settled cultured life. Besides this the 

 mouth of the Lena does not form a wide, open estuary like the mouth of the Yenessei, or a 

 large gulf like the Obi, but an enormous delta, projecting into the Arctic Ocean, which with 

 its labyrinth of islands, intersected by numerous channels, makes (lie mouth of the Lena far 

 less accessible from the sea than that of the Yenessei. The other large rivers falling into the 

 Arctic Ocean, the Yana and Indighirka, also have a tendency to form deltas. 



The climate of the Yakutsk region is the most continental of the Arctic and suh-Arctic 

 zones of the Old World. It may be divided into two regions or belts, the one corresponding 

 to the region of high-stemmed trees, forest industries and sporadic agriculture of Eastern 

 and Western Siberia, and the other to the polar tundra belt of reindeer breeding and dog- 

 conveyance. The first region comprises the districts nf Yakutsk, Olekminsk and a large southern 



