32 Trof. Milne — Across Europe and Asia. 



a considerable height above the Baikal, and therefore at still greater 

 height above the level of the sea. 



This would bring these deposits of Siberian alluvium almost, if 

 not quite, upon a level with any that have been deposited upon the ' 

 Mongolian plateau, about which I shall speak presently, both of 

 them indicating a great depression of land beneath water that was 

 in all probability fresh in recent times. Up this same valley there 

 are some beds of unstratified alluvium, in which there are buried 

 angular blocks of rock not belonging to the district in which they 

 are found. Although I made all inquiries I could about these, 

 their discoverer, M. Tchersky, did not lead me to understand that 

 they afforded evidence of glacial origin. Nevertheless, further 

 observations may show them to have been derived, perhaps, from 

 local glaciers. If this is so, then we have a fragment of the evidence 

 that is needed to establish the fact that this portion of Siberia was 

 once invaded by ice. When this is adduced, the origin of the earlier 

 deposits of the Siberian drift may be explained in a manner different 

 to that which I have suggested. 



On the same afternoon that I passed through the volcanic district 

 of Kalenishnaya, I met one or two tea caravans. The flat faces and 

 oblique eyes of the men who drove these told me my European 

 associations must soon end, and I should be very shortly among the 

 Mongols. That night I reached Troitskosarsk. This town lies near 

 the head of a sloping valley, bounded on either side by hills of a 

 moderate height. About two miles from this, down the valley, is 

 Kiachta, the Kussian frontier town, which immediately abuts on 

 the palisaded Chinese town of Miamachin. These three towns are 

 better known and spoken of under the name of Kiachta, which is 

 the smallest of the three. It is seldom that there is sufficient snow 

 about Kiachta to enable sledges to be used; however, there was 

 quite enough upon the surrounding hills to prevent me from ascend- 

 ing them. In the valley there are beds of an earthy sand, through 

 which, in places, I saw sections twenty feet in thickness, cut by a 

 small stream which flows down through them towards the Selinga. 

 The wearing away of this sandy covering gives the arenaceous charac- 

 ter to the soil of the neighbourhood, which is so striking to all visitors. 



At Kiachta I was delayed several days before I could complete 

 my arrangements for crossing Mongolia, which was now before me. 

 My intention had been to travel with a Eussian officer whose 

 acquaintance I had made in Irkutsk. In Kiachta my intentions were 

 frustrated by the Commissary of the Frontier showing me that as 

 my friend was to travel as a courier by a special route, it was not 

 permissible to allow me to proceed by the same road, without 

 violating arrangements entered into between the Eussian and 

 Chinese Governments respecting couriers and the routes they travel. 

 Disappointed in this, I next made arrangements to accompany some 

 Mongols who were conducting a caravan as far as Changiakau or 

 Kalgan, the frontier town between China and Mongolia. I had five 

 camels for myself, my baggage, and a Cossack, whom the Commissary 

 very kindly allowed to conduct me as far as Pekin. 



