Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/787

Rh 1em 1em 1em 1em 1em 1em (undefined)  YENISEI. See and.  YENISEISK, a province of Eastern Siberia, which extends from the Chinese frontier to the shores of the Arctic Ocean, with an area of 992,870 square miles—as large as one-half of European Russia—has Tobolsk and Tomsk on the W., Yakutsk and Irkutsk on the E., north-western Mongolia on the S., and the Arctic Ocean on the N. (see pl.I.). Its southern extremity being in 51° 45′N. lat. and its northern (Cape Tcheluskin) in 77° 38′, it combines a great variety of orographical types, from the Sayan alpine regions in the south to the tundras of the Arctic littoral. The border-ridge of the high plateau of north-western Mongolia, which is known under the general name of the Western Sayans, and reaches altitudes of from 7000 to 8000, limits it in the south. This is girdled on the north-western slope by a zone, nearly 100 wide, of alpine tracts, characterized by narrow valleys separated by several parallel chains of mountains, which are built up of crystalline slates, from 6000 to 7000  high. Here in the impenetrable forests only a few Tungus families find a precarious living by hunting. Towards the south, in the basins of the tributaries of the Tuba, the Sisim, and the Yus, and in those of the Kan, the Agut, and the Biryusa, the valleys of the alpine tracts contain rich auriferous deposits, and numerous gold-washings have been established along the taiga. In 53° 10′N. lat. the Yenisei emerges from the mountain tracts into the wide steppes of Abakan and Minusinsk, from 1500 to 2000 above sea-level, which extend along the base of the mountain region 