﻿Prof. Milne — Across Europe and Asia. 459 



ascent it reached the more permeable and separable beds of the old 

 red conglomerate, tied down as they are by the tougher masses of 

 limestone, it spread itself out and ultimately raising the limestone 

 in a boss or saddle, produced a crack or series of cracks, and so 

 forced its way through the opening to the surface." With this 

 passage as a description of facts I do not quarrel ; but I cannot at 

 all agree with its inferences. If the conglomerate was of Devonian 

 age, as Mr. Gumming suggests, and the trap dyke in passing through 

 it was broken up into many small channels, it seems impossible that 

 it should have again become concentrated into one or two main 

 streams in passing the limestone. But if the conglomerate be as I 

 claim to have shown, of Glacial age and long posterior in date to the 

 limestone, the appearances so truthfully and graphically described 

 by Mr. Gumming are at once clear and very interesting. The 

 streams of trap permeating the red conglomerate make it almost 

 certain that the outbursts of the trap and the activity of the volcanic 

 vent at Scarlet Point were posterior to the deposit of the Boulder- 

 clay, and we thus add another remarkable example to the list of 

 volcanos active within the British seas in post-Tertiary times. 

 Although only an amateur geologist, I hope this may be deemed a 

 fact of sufficient importance to excuse my intrusion into your pages. 



IX. — AcKoss Europe and Asia. — TiiAVELLiNa Notes. 



By Professor John Milne, F.G.S. ; 



Imperial College of Engineering, Tokei, Japan. 



(Continued from p. 406.) 



Part V. — Eltaterinburg to Tomslc. 



Contents. — Ekaterinburg to Tumen. — Tumen to Tomsk (along the Toufa, Tobol, 

 Irtish, and Obi). — The Ostiacks. — Character of the Siberian Steppes. — Theory 

 of their Origin. 



ON Wednesday, the 22nd of September, I left Ekaterinburg for 

 Tumen, where I hoped to catch a steamer going to Tomsk. 

 For a short distance after starting, the road was bounded by tall firs. 

 Beyond these came a few hill-like mounds covered with large grey 

 weather-worn boulders, the appearances of which were not unlike 

 those of some ancient terminal moraines. These boulders were the 

 only ones which I saw during the whole of my journey across Siberia. 

 From their similarity to the rock of the country which here and 

 there cropped up through its covering of j^eat and grass, I think they 

 must have been of local origin ; but whether this origin was in any 

 way connected with the action of ice, through not having made any 

 close examination I am unable to form any conclusion. For the re- 

 mainder of the road the land on either side was under cultivation, and 

 was yellow with fields of stubble and stacks of corn. Now and then 

 I passed a village of log huts. In each of these a church, with a 

 towering dome, surrounded by many smaller domes, was conspicuous 

 among the poverty above Avhich it rose. At many of the houses in 

 the villages of this part of Siberia the inhabitants had been at some 

 pains in building small box-like houses, which were raised on the 

 •top of poles, in order to induce sparrows to localize themselves. 



