Prof. Milne — Across Europe and Asia. 
459 
ascent it reached the more permeable and separable beds of tbe old 
red conglomerate, tied down as they are by tbe tougher masses of 
limestone, it spread itself out and ultimately raising the liraestone 
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. Cumming 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. Cumming are at onee 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. — Across Europe and Asia. — Travelling Notes. 
By Professor John Milne, F.G.S. ; 
Imperial College of Engineering, Tokei, Japan. 
(Continued from p. 406.) 
Part V. — Ekaterinburg to Tomsk. 
Contents. — Ekaterinburg to Turnen. — Turnen to Tomsk (along tbe Toufa, Tobol, 
Irtish, and Obi). — The Ostiacks. — Cbaracter of the Siberian Steppes. — Theory 
of their Origin. 
O N Wednesdaji, the 22nd of September, I left Ekaterinburg for 
Turnen, where I hoped to catch a steamer going to Tomsk. 
For a short distance after starting, the roadwas 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 peat 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 dorne, surrounded by many smaller domes, was conspicuous 
among the poverty above which 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-Hke houses, which were raised on the 
top of poles, in Order to induce sparrows to localize themselves. 
