Yenisei

South of the Pit mountains (the northern limit of corn growing land), the Angara or Upper Tunguska enters the Yenisei, after flowing i,ioo m. from Lake Baikal. The Selenga and the Angara were probably once united and Lake Baikal is of later forma tion. A rich gold-bearing region extends from the Angara to the Stony Tunguska, and the Pit enters the Yenisei on the right in this district. The Stony Tunguska, i,000 m. long, is almost un inhabited, and here the deciduous forest merges into the conifer ous. From the Stony Tunguska to Turukhansk is dense coniferous forest, with a few settlements on the right bank mainly. The Bakhta, north of the Stony Tunguska, flows through a marshy, uninhabited country. Above the confluence of the Stony Tun guska, the Yenisei broadens and reefs of rock known as the "Seventy Islands" rise above its waters.

The Lower Tunguska, 2,000 m. long, rising in lat. 57° N., 20 M. from the Lena, winds through a marshy forest country, with no settlements except in its upper course, where the villages are linked with the easily reached Lena. Coal, graphite and asbestos exist, but are not worked. The Turukhan enters from the left and is used by the Samoyedes to link with the Taz. The town of Turukhan, 1 o m. from the Yenisei on the delta of the Turukhan, is now derelict and Monastir Turukhan (Troitskoe Monastir) on the right bank has replaced it. The Kureika river enters from the left and is linked with Obdorsk by a western track. There is un worked graphite in the Kureika valley. In lat. N., the scattered larches and birches give way to treeless tundra. There is a Russian trading settlement at Dudinsk, at the confluence of the Dudina and 6o m. E. coal of good quality is found in the Novil mountains, and platinum is reported. A scattered population, descendants of Russian exiles and natives, extends from Dudinsk to the Khatanga river. The Yenisei delta and gulf are not fully explored. The west is low and marshy and the east steep. Fish abound and native fishermen migrate north in summer. Golchikha, a Samoyede village on an island in the delta in 70 45' N., 84° E., has steamer communication with Krasnoyarsk and Minusinsk, fish and fur going upstream and corn, meat and manufactured goods downstream. Yenisei navigation is less important than that of the Ob, owing to the scantier population and more difficult en vironment. In winter the frozen river serves as a good road. At the delta the river is usually frozen from Oct. 3o to June 23; at Turukhansk, from Nov. 1 1 to June 8, at Krasnoyarsk from Dec.

5 to May 12; and at Minusinsk from Nov. 29 to May There 'are floods in mid-May and mid-June, and huge blocks of ice col lect in and near the mouth after the thaws.

Exploration and Settlement.

The Yenisei was first reached by Cossack bands in 1618 to 162o, who came from the Ob via the portage between the Ket tributary of that river and the Kaz tributary of the Yenisei which is now linked by canal. They met with much opposition from the Tungus and Buriat tribes and it was not till 1648 that the Russians penetrated to Lake Baikal via the Angara river. The exploration of the delta was much delayed, for though English and Russian navigators visited the Kara Sea in the 16th century, the upper course of the river, 6 m. wide near the delta, and with a delta opening into a gulf 4o m. wide, presents great difficulties when the warmer waters from the south under mine the ice and huge ice floes swell up and burst away, forming ice hills sometimes 5o to 6o ft. high on the banks, while the pack ice blocks on the current travel northwards at 20 m. an hour, crashing against one another with deafening reverberations.

After 1853, a wealthy Siberian, Sidoroff, agitated for 20 years to establish links between Europe and the mouths of the Arctic rivers of Siberia and in 1874 an English vessel reached the mouth of the Ob, while NordenskjOld, the famous Swedish explorer, in 1875 entered the mouth of the Yenisei. In 1876 an English vessel reached Kureika on the Yenisei and in the following year Sidoroff reached the delta from Yeniseisk, and sailed to Leningrad. In 1878, the Fraser and Express, two ships of Nordenskjold's "Vega" expedition ascended the Yenisei. A company was formed to estab lish trade via this route, but was unsuccessful and was dissolved in 1900. The project is now being revived and in 1928 a Kara Sea expedition, consisting of three British and five Norwegian vessels, set out from Hamburg on Aug. 1, sailing via the North Sea, Bar ents sea, through the Novaya Zemlya islands and the Kara sea to the mouths of the Ob and Yenisei, taking 15,000 tons of agricul tural machinery, metals, drugs and coal, to exchange for timber, flax, cow-wool, hides and horsehair, brought down the rivers on barges towed by steamers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Nordenskjold, The Voyage of the Vega, 1881; P. Kropotkin, Orographie de la Siberie (19o5) ; Suess, The Face of the Earth, vol. (1908), with references to Russian articles, esp. by Obruchev; E. Argand, La Tectonique de l'Asie (1922, publ. 1924).