AMOOS.', or AMUIt, a river formed by the junction (about lat. 53° n., and long. 120° e.) of the Shilka and the Argoun, which both come from the s.w.—the former rising in Russian Siberia, near the head-waters of the Yenisei; and the latter in Chinese Tartary, not far front the sandy plateau of Kohl. Front this starting post, the A. presents, on its right, a tolerably symmetrical curve, which, after receiving, at its most southerly point, the Songari front beyond the wall of China, besides other considerable feeders on both sides of either segment, enters, on nearly its original parallel, the gulf of Saghalien, about a degree below the sea of Okhotsk, properly so called. Great additions have been made to our knowledge of this large and important river within the last few years. It has been ascertained that its basin comprehends about 766,000 sq.in., and that its course has a length of about 2500 miles. Steam-boats of light draught ascend it as high as Ust Strelka, at the junction of the Shilka: and that river is navigable for boats to the foot of the Yablonoi range in eastern Siberia, part of which lies in the basin of the A. The Russians, after conquering Siberia in the 16th c., turned their attention immediately to the advan tages which the possession of this river offered. The territory and the people had always been in possession of China—the people sometimes tributaries, at other times conquerors. From as early as 1636, Russian adventurers made excursions into the Chinese territories of the lower A. In 1666, they built a fort at Albazin, and succeeded in navigating from that fort to the mouth of the river. In 1685, the fort was taken and destroyed by the Chinese, but was retaken promptly by the Russians. who, however, abandoned it and the whole of the A. to the Chinese. But Russian writers did not cease to keep alive in the minds of their fellow-subjects that the lower A. belonged to them; and the fur-hunters of Siberia, encouraged by government, continued to pursue their vocation on Chinese ground. In 1854-56, two military expeditions were conducted by count .Muravieff, who twice descended the A. from the mouth of Shilka, unopposed by the Chinese. This was during the Crimean war. On the arrival of news of peace, the Russians were
left to strengthen their positions at the mouth and other parts of the A. In 1857, count Putiatin endeavored in vain to obtain from Ohina concessions on the river in favor of Russia. In 1858, the war between the former country and Great Britain and France induced China to agree to the treaty of Tientsin, by which the boundaries of Russia and China were defined. Several towns were, as the result, established by the former of these two powers on the left bank of the A., of which the largest are Khabarooka and Solyensk; and an A. trading company was established. In 1860, after the occupation of Pekin by the British and French, in less than a month after lord Elgin and baron Gros had affixed their signatures to the peace conventions at Pekin, gen. Ignatieff secured the signature Rung prince Kun to a treaty, by which Russia acquired thebroad and wide territory com prised between the river A. and the mouth of the Tumiln, extending 10° of lat. nearer the temperate regions, and running from the shore of the north Pacific eastward to the banks of the river tsuri, a principal affluent of the A. An enormous advantage .to Russia of this acquisition of territory was the fact that it conferred on that country the advantage of harbors on the Pacific -in it comparatively temperate latitude, where navigation is impeded by ice for at most 3 or 4 months a 3-ear. The bay of Passiett, to the s. of this region, lying at a point where the Russian, Chinese, and Corean frontiers adjoin each other, possesses a large trading town and a military station; 60 or 70 m. n. is situated the important harbor of Vladivostok (" rule of the east"), or port May, which, in 1872, was placed in telegraphic communication with Europe by the China submarine cable, and is now the capital of the A. provinces. The island of Saghalien (q.v.), lying immediately n. of the Japan group, along a portion of the coast of Asiatic Russia, and formerly possessed partly by that government and partly by Japan, was recently taken entire possession of by the unscrupulous aggressive power which has so stealthily and silently acquired the adjacent A. provinces.