The thriving community,
busy with a prosperous trade, is typical of the coming transformation
of Siberia.
A short distance beyond Irkutsk the line reaches one of the most
remarkable places in the world--Lake Baikal. This grand lake is as
long as England. It is nearly a mile deep, and covers an area of
13,430 square miles. Its surface is 1,500 feet above the level of
the sea. On every side it is hemmed in by lofty mountains, covered
with thick forest. Only a few tiny villages relieve its dreary
solitude. The early Russian settlers, impressed by the mystic silence
and gloomy grandeur of Baikal, named it the "Holy Sea." It abounds
in fish of many species, and every season thousands of pounds' worth
of salmon are caught and dried. At the north end great numbers of
seals have their habitat, the Buriat hunters sometimes taking as
many as 1,000 in a single season. Baikal is the only fresh-water
sea in the world in which this animal is found.
The Transbaikalian section takes the line from Lake Baikal to the
great Amur River.
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