﻿Rev. T. G. Bonney — Pitchsfones and Fehites of Arran. 511 



with like, in alternate order.^ The effect then of contraction due to 

 cooling is pi'obably much greater in producing rock structures than 

 has been generally supposed. Since, however, the chemical com- 

 position, and the circumstances of solidification, vary so greatly in 

 igneous rocks, and a very slight difference in the circumstances may 

 produce with these minute structures a very appreciable alteration 

 in the results, we must not be surprised if cases should occur to 

 which we cannot apply the above exj)lanations, at any rate without 

 considerable modification. 



IV. — Across Europe and Asia. — Travelling Notes. 



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



Imperial College of Engineering, Tokei, Japan. 



(Continued from p. 468.) 



Part VI. — Tomsk to IrTcidslc. 



Contents. — Tomsk to Krasnojarsk — Appearance of the Country — Flint Implements 

 at Kansk — Pre-historic Remains in Siberia, probably the ' Spoor ' of a race 

 allied to the Eskimo— Geology in the neighbourhood of Irkutsk— Cold of 

 Irkutsk. 



THE day on which I arrived at Tomsk, which was the 6th of 

 October, I bought a small tarantass, and next morning I stai'ted, 

 with some who had been fellow-passengers on the steamer, en route 

 for Irkutsk. There were four conveyances between three parties, 

 one of them being used exclusively for baggage. As each of these 

 always needed three horses, and sometimes four, we often had diffi- 

 culties at the post-station, where the post-master seemed disinclined 

 to allow such a sudden draft being made upon his stables. Luckily 

 my fi'iends were high officials, and travelling on Government ser- 

 vice, and their wants had from necessity to be supplied. My 

 carriage being included with the rest, I went along comfortably and 

 without delay, which would most certainly have occurred had I 

 been alone. Before we were fairly outside Tomsk we ascended 

 what I had, when at a distance, mistaken for hills, but which now 

 appeared to be only a scarp-like face of a plateau, and we were soon 

 upon a dusty road bounded by a low plantation of birch. Now and 

 then we plunged down and over a small water-course, our momen- 

 tum always carrying us some distance up the other side. Every- 

 where the country appeared as if it were an alluvial expanse ; but in 

 the vicinity I think there must have been some beds of rock, because 

 everywhere along the road stone was being used as a material to 

 repair it. This was yellow, argillaceous, and somewhat slaty in its 

 character, perhaps having come from some of the Coal-measures 

 which I believe exist in the vicinity of Tomsk. The birch-trees 

 were now destitute even of their withered leaves, and the only 

 relics of the falling year were a few white heads of a Millefolium 

 and brown tufts of faded grass. During our first day upon the 

 road we met a number of carts carrying a white clay, used in Tomsk 

 for the manufacture of pottery. We travelled day and night, stop- 



1 With this compare the " veined structure " in glacier ice, as explained by Prof. 

 Tyndall, Glaciers of the Alps, p. 376. 



