THE USSURI-LITTOEAL TEACT. 67 



compared with the Bay of St. Olga, which represents the type of the most humid marine 

 climate, the climate of Vladivostok appears to be far more continental, indeed even more so 

 than that of Khabarovka, where 560 millimetres of moisture is precipitated in the course of 

 the year, of which 312 falls during the summer months. Under such comparatively excellent 

 climatic conditions, the port of Vladivostok remains open and accessible at almost all seasons 

 of the year, with the exception only of an extremely short winter period, lasting here as in 

 Odessa not more than VJ2 to 2 months. 



Further, upon the western slope of the Sikhete-Alin, in the broad zone, covered to a 

 considerable extent with woods and morasses, between the coast range and the river Ussuri, 

 the climate is far moister than in Vladivostok and in particular is more rainy in summer.; The 

 humidity of the climate and the dampness of the soil, which never dries up owing to the dense 

 vegetation, have determined the method of sowing grain in rows or beds, to allow the 

 free passage of streams of air to prevent the rotting of the crop at the root. But however 

 this may be, it has become evident that certain localities of the country are so damp that in 

 them such a development of sporiferous plants or micro fungi takes places on the ears that 

 bread baked from the flour of grain st i iukcn ^v t ^fa - t ' hoijO . t > li §bte becomes intoxicating, producing 

 in fact such symptoms in those who eat it. This inconvenience called forth by climatic 

 conditions sometimes even causes immigi'ants to abandon the «spots which produce intoxica- 

 ting bread»^ 



Absolutely different and far less favourable are the conditions (as far as agriculture is 

 concerned, as a consequence of its geographical situation), of the island of Sakhalin, which 

 has acquired latterly a world-wide notoriety as a Russian convict settlement. This island, severed 

 from the Ussuri country by the most northern part of the Sea of Japan, the Tartar or Xe- 

 velsky's straits, stretches exactly along the 8 dergees of latitude, between 54° and 46*^, and 

 projects with its northern extremity, Cape St. Elisabeth, into the Sea of Okhotsk, and with its 

 southern extremity, bending round the extensive bay of Aniva in the shape of a horseshoe, 

 approaches Japan, from which it is separated by the straits of Laperouse. Somewhat to the 

 norths of the bay of De Castri, the straits dividing Sakhalin from the Ussuri country are so 

 narrow and shallow that they are inaccessible to large ocean-going ships, and in conse- 

 quence rather separate than unite the mouth of the Amour with the Sea of Japan. The 

 skeleton of Sakhalin is formed of a fairly elevated range with steep summits, consisting of 

 volcanic rocks, such as basalt, which have lifted beds of stratified rocks belonging to the 

 rare, in Siberia, cretaceous formation. It is here rich in shells, ammonites of great size, inoce- 

 ramus, patella, rhynchonella et cetera. There also occur layers of middle tertiary or miocene 

 formation, in which many remains of vegetation are to be met with, consisting of the leaves 

 of the beech (fagus), walnut (juglans), and salisburia, now no longer thriving in Sakhalin. To 

 the north of parallel 52" the Sakhalin range, attaining in its loftiest points (Three Brothers, 

 on the northern extremity of the island and Engys-Pal, somewhat nurth of 52" X. lat.) 2,000 

 feet upon sea level, falls abruptly on the eastern side to the Sea of Okhotsk, and on the west, 

 on the side of the Tartar straits, forms a low and marshy coast land between its foothills and 

 the shore line. To the south of 52" the range is cleft into two crests by a longittidinal valley, 

 along which from their jinictiou nui in tlii' line of the meridian in opposite directions the 



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