374 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
and the region of Lake Baikal. It is said that the Angara 
might be made quite navigable during its whole course at an 
expenditure trifling in comparison with the advantages that 
would thus be gained, as well as its continuation, the Selenga, 
in its lower part between the Chinese frontier and Lake Baikal. 
In this way a river route would be opened for the conveyance of 
the products of North China and South Siberia to a sea which 
an ordinary steamer would cross in five or six days to the White 
Sea or the North Cape. A similar communication with the 
Atlantic may be opened on the double river Ob-Irtisch with 
Western Siberia and High Asia as far as to Chinese Dsungaria, 
where the Irtisch begins its course as a small river, the Black 
Irtisch" which falls into Lake Saisan, and rises south of the 
Altai Mountains in the neighbourhood of the Selenga, the 
source-river of the Yenisej. At several places the river terri¬ 
tories of the Ob and the Yenesej nearly reach hands to one 
another through affluents, which rise so close to each other that 
the two river systems might easily be connected by canals. 
This is also the case with the affluents of the Yenesej and the 
Lena, which at many places almost meet, and the Lena itself 
is, according to Latkin’s statement, navigable from the village 
of Kotschuga to the sea. We see from this how extraordinarily 
advantageous is the natural system of interior communication 
which Siberia possesses, and at the same time that a communica¬ 
tion by sea between this country and the rest of the world is pos¬ 
sible only by the Arctic Ocean. It is on this that the enormous 
importance of the navigation of the Siberian Polar Sea depends. 
If this can be brought about, Siberia, with an inconsiderable 
expenditure in making canals, will not only become one of the 
most fortunate countries of the globe in respect of the possi¬ 
bility of the cheap transport of goods, but the old proposal of a 
north-eastern commercial route to China may even become a 
reality. If, on the other hand, navigation on the Polar Sea 
be nort brought about, Siberia will still long remain what it is 
