24 MR. H. J. EL"WES ON THE 



between the Eastern and Western Pal^aretic, or, as it is now more 

 properly called, the Holarctic Eegion. This idea was not con- 

 firmed by my own observations, for I found many species of 

 butterflies and some birds which were previously only known 

 from Dauria and Anmrland ; and I think that if any boundary 

 can be fixed, it must be sought west of the Altai Mountains. 



By the Altai Mountains I understand the westtrn extension of 

 the great mountain-range between Semipalatinsk and Irkutsk, 

 which is divided from the mountain-ranges of Turkestan by the 

 Irtysch river, and from the Himalayas and the great mountaia- 

 ranges of Central Asia by the Gobi Desert and Mongolia. The 

 southern part of this range, linown as the Great Altai, is in 

 Chinese territory and is at present very little known. I may add 

 that the political boundary between Kus^ia and China follows 

 roughly, or is siippoifed to follow, what I daresay geographers 

 thought was the southern watershed of the Obb and Tenesei 

 rivers, but as a matter of fact the whole of the upper waters 

 of the Y^nesei are in Chinese territory. One of our objects 

 was to visit this great mountain valley, containing the head- 

 waters of the Tenesei, wdiich is almost unknown to the Russians 

 themselves, though Clements and one or two other travellers 

 have passed through parts of it, and it is annually visited by 

 a number of fur-hunters and gold-miners. The upper region of 

 the Tenesei, from the sources of the Kemchik to Lake Kossogol, 

 including the great valleys of the Beikem and Ulukem between the 

 Tannu.-ola mountains and the Russo-Chinese frontier, is almost 

 uninhabited, and unknown except to those iti search of fur and 

 gold, though in a general way its outlines are reproduced on the 

 map. On reaching St. Petersburg, I made every endeavour to get 

 information as to the possibilities of visiting this country, and as 

 to what had been done recently by Russian travellers. I was 

 introduced to M. Beresowsky, who had accompanied Potanin in 

 two of his journeys right through Mongolia to China, and 

 had collected what information he could. The result of 

 these enquiries, and what I was told by M. P. P. Semenov, 

 Yice-presideut of the Russian Geographical Society, who was 

 most friendly to me, tended to show that the greater part of 

 these valleys were almost impassable in summer ; because the 

 mountains were covered with dense forests, and the valleys 

 were very marshy, intersected with numerous streams and rivers 

 which were difficult to cross with horses. I w^as also informed, 



