Al6 ALTAIC SYSTEM. 
Jablonnoikhrebet chain, Khingkhan, and the Al- 
dan Mountains, which advance along the Sea of 
Ochotzk. The mean latitude of its prolongation from 
east to west is between 50° and 51° 30’. The Altaic 
range, properly so called, scarcely occupies seven 
degrees of longitude ; but the northern part of the 
mountains, surrounding the great mass of elevated 
land in the interior of Asia, and occupying the space 
comprised between 48° and 51°, is considered as 
belonging to this system, because simple names are 
more easily retained by the memory, and because 
that of Altai is more known to Europeans by its 
great metallic richness, which amounts annually to 
45,907 troy pounds of silver, and 1246 troy pounds 
of gold. The Altaic Mountains are not a chain form- 
ing the boundary of a country like the Himmaleh, 
which limit the elevated plain of Thibet, and have 
a rapid slope only on the side next to India, which 
is lower. The plains in the neighbourhood of the 
Lake Balkachi have not an elevation of more than 
1920 feet above the sea. 
Between the meridians of Oust- Kamenogorsk and 
Semipolatinsk the Altaic system is prolonged, from 
east to west under the parallels of 49 and 50 de- 
grees by a chain of low mountains, over an extent 
of 736 miles, as far as the steppe of the Kirghiz. 
This ridge has been elevated through a fissure 
which forms the line of separation of the streams of 
the Sara-sou and Irtisch, and which regularly fol- 
lows the same direction over an extent of 16 degrees 
of longitude. It consists of stratified granites not 
intermixed with gneiss, and of greenstone, porphyry, 
jasper, and transition-limestone, in which there 
occur various metallic substances. This low range 
does not reach the southern extremity of the Ural, 
einai cm = 
