The most fertile stretches are also to be found here in the transition zone between 

 the moist taiga and the hot steppe. The first attempts at agriculture were seen to have 

 been made already at Scbi, but the crops are very uncertain on account of the short sum- 

 mer, nights of frost occurring, even in the lowland, already in August. Rye, however, 

 is said to ripen here generally, while wheat mostly fails, being destroyed by the early 

 nights of frost. At Tapsa a rich and interested Russian, Safianow by name, has built a 

 lonely summer-residence, where potatoes, cucumbers, water-melons, tomatoes and 

 other vegetables, besides oats, wheat, barley, and millet were grown to perfection. 



However, the climate is so dry that artificial irrigation is required. Along [he river 

 Cha-kul, about 300 wersts further to the west, there are also small patches of culti- 

 vated ground to be met with, where chiefly millet, rye, and some wheat are sown, but 

 in these places also the crops ai'e eminently dependent on artificial irrigation. In dry 

 summers, when the sources of the Cha-kul happen to be dried up, and no water is to 

 be found for artificial watering, this agriculture utterly fails. 



The Lower Steppe Area about tlie riu-keiii. 



A short distance below Tapsa the Rei-kem receives a very considerable tributary, 

 the Xa-kem, or Chua-kem, and under the name of the Ulu-kem the united rivers flow 

 westwards through a very rugged but rather, low-lying and completely woodless rocky 

 land, with a typical steppe vegetation, the scenery here in some places even having the 

 appearance of a real desert. This is the large Soyote Steppe, about the Ulu-kem, 

 extending about 300 wersts westwards along the river to the Kemchik region, and north- 

 wards to the Sayansk mountains in about 52° N. L., passing to the south through the 

 Tannu-Ola direct into the vast steppes and deserts of Mongolia. The Tannu-Ola moun- 

 tains differ widely from the Sayansk mountains in character, forming really one large 

 ridge, running in a west-easterly direction from the Kemchik region. On this ridge are 

 to be found several rounded peaks averaging about 2650 m. above sea-level. The passes 

 between them are generally about 200 m. lower and easily passable, the more so as 

 the Tannu-Ola mountains are for a great part woodless. In several places the ground is 

 so plain that the traveller is even enabled to avail himself of carts. The Tannu-Ola 

 differs from the Sayansk, however, not only in shape and climate but partly also in the 

 flora and fauna, the steppe scenery being more prevalent here. 



The steppes about the Ulu-kem are not real plains, but form a very rugged land- 

 scape, a rock-steppe with barren, steep acclivities, larger alluvial plains occurring here 

 and there, only along the river. The rocky ground chiefly consists of Devonian sand- 

 stone, in many places exposed in mighty profiles along the river. Especially in the most 

 western part towards Cha-kul, a series of eruptives have broken up, their light, frequently 

 nearly white colours contrasting nicely with the monotonous brownish-red landscape. 

 The height of the river-bed above sea-level sinks over this distance of roughly 300 

 wersts from about 760 m. at Tapsa down to about 560 m. at Cha-kul and Kemchik. 



94 



