280 SIBERIA. 



This coucliiilfj.s Uio ili.scription of the navigairw. mIi ilie Siberiaa waters feeding the 

 Arctic Ocean, as the hasin of the fourtli Siberian river, the Amour, ami the lake Khank 

 which is in connection with it, appertains entinjly to the Eastern Ocean. 



Navigation ou the Amour basin. 



The navjgaiinn on \\v) Aiiioiir tia>iii i> a iiiaiit-r ol <;oiii|iaraiively recent (iat*;; 

 as lalijly as ]8lO it was imi known whcllier the rivers of this basin were navigable, 

 and very liilh; was known ol tin; Aiiioiir ii^'ll ami its estuary. In 1844 loi- the first 

 time an Imperial edict was issued, emi)owering the Russian-American Cora))any in fit 

 out a vessel at the expense of the Government lor exploring the estuary of tlie Amour. 

 On May 5, 1846, the ship «Constantiue», under the command of Gavrilov, entered the Amour 

 and this was the first vessel that had ever made its appearance on th<! waters of that river- 

 From that time the exploration of the country went with more rapid strides, ami later, thanks 

 to the military expedition of Count Mouraviev, who in 1854 descended the Amour with the 

 Government steamer «Argun», built at the Shilkinsk works, Ilussian rule in the Amour region 

 obtained a firm foothold. The formal annexation of the extensive basin of the Amour to the 

 Russian dominions later on may be regarded as the commencement of the civil developement 

 of that region. In 1855 Yice-Admiral Poutiatiu went up the Amour in the steamer cNadezhda> 

 and in the following year another steamer, the &Shilka» made its appearance. At the end 

 of 1856 an Imperial edict was issued concerning the organization of the Amour province 

 which includt'd Kamchatka, the whole of the shore of the Okhotsk Sea with the region of 

 Udsk and the places occupied by Russia in the low country of the Amour and the Straits 

 of Tartary. In order to keep up regular intercourse between the different points of the new 

 territory the Government acquired two more steamers, the «Amour3> and «Lena». Thus in 

 1857 there were 5 Government steamers plying on the Amour; in 1860 the number was in- 

 creased to 8, and in 1870 it rose to 12. At the same time i)rivate individuals and separate 

 Government institutions also began to provide themselves with steamers; the first private 

 steamboat ou the Amour made its appearance in 1859; the telegraph department in 1863 

 possessed 5 steamers and the Engineering Department 3, so that in 1870 there were altogether 

 25 steamboats on the Amour. 



About this time the idea originated of instituting a regular steamboat time service on 

 the Amour in order to satisfy the increasing w^ants of trade and in case of necessity for 

 moving troops and carrying Government stores and forage. For this purpose, at the end of the 

 year 1871, a 20- years concession was granted to Benardaki and Co. for keeping up a regular 

 steamboat communication on the rivers of the Amour basin. ;Benardaki then formed the 

 company for organizing regular steamboat'traffic ou these rivers. The company took upon itself 

 the obligation of maintaining from 1872 regular mail and passenger traffic on the Amour bet- 

 ween Nikolaevsk and Sretensk, a distance of 2,956 versts, also a mail steam tug service from 

 Khabarovka to post X° 4 near lake Khanka, a distance of 630 versts, on lake Khauka as 

 far as the post of Kameu-Rybolov, 135 versts, and an occasional steam tug service from 

 Sretensk to Xicolaevsk. 



