I'.n; 



THE POLAR WORLD. 



Albasin was soon after rfl)uilt ; but as Kiissia at that time had no iiidina- 

 lion to oni;ac:o in constant quarrels with the Celestial Empire about tlie posses- 

 sion of a remote deseit, all its ])retensions to the Amoor were given up by the 

 treaty of Xertsehiiisk (Kisit). This agreement, however, like so many others, 

 was (Icniiicd to last III) li)ni;cr than it pleased the more jiowerful of the con- 

 tracting parties to keep it, and came to nothing as soon as the possession of the 

 Amoor tt iritory became an object of importance, and the increasing weakness 

 .)f China was no lojiger able to dispute its possession. Thus, when Count 

 Nicholas ^lourawieff was appointed Governor-general of Eastern Siberia in 

 1847, one of his first cares was to approi>riate or annex the Amoor. lie imme- 

 diately sent a surveying expedition to the mouth of the river, where, in 1851, 

 reirardlcss of the remonstrances of the Chinese Govei'nment, he ordered the sta- 



-./"iifyp^ 



THE BEACH AT NICOLATEVSK. 





tions of Xicolayevsk and Mariinsk to be built; and in 1854 he himself sailed 

 down the Amoor, with a numerous liotilla of boats and rafts, for the purpose 

 of ])ersonally opening this new chamiel of intercourse with the Pacific. Other 

 expeditions soon followed, and the Chinese, finding resist;ince hopeless, ceded to 

 Russia in the year 1858, by the treaty of Aigun,the left bank of the Amoor as 

 far as the influx of the Ussuri, and both its banks below the latter river. Thus 

 theCiar found some consolation for the losses of the Crimean campaign in the 

 acquisition of a vast territory in the distant East, Avhich, tliough at j)resent a 

 mere wilderness, may in time become a flourishing colony. 



In 1644, a few years after the discovery of the Amoor, the Cossack Michael 

 Staducliin formed a winter establishment on the delta of the Kolyma, which has 



