gen, marine sponges, polychaetes, a marine mollusc (_ancilodoris_),
and some marine gammarids. The waters of the lake swarm with fish
(sturgeons and _salmonidae_), and its herring (_Salmo omul_) is the chief
product of the fisheries, though notably fewer have been taken within the
last forty or fifty years. Plankton is very abundant. The little Lake
Frolikha, situated close to the northern extremity of Lake Baikal and
communicating with it by means of a river of the same name, contains a
peculiar species of trout, _Salmo erythreas_, which is not known elsewhere.
Generally, while there is a relative poverty of zoological groups, there is
a great wealth of species within the group. Of gammarids, there are as many
as 300 species, and those living at great depths (330 to 380 fathoms) tend
to assume abyssal characters similar to those displayed by the deep-sea
fauna of the ocean.

_Navigation._--Navigation of the lake is rendered difficult both by sudden
storms and by the absence of good bays and ports. [v.03 p.0216] The
principal port on the western shore, Listvinichnoe, near the outflow of the
Angara, is an open roadstead at the foot of steep mountains. Steamers ply
from it weekly to Misovaya (Posolskoe) on the opposite shore, a few times a
year to Verkhne-Angarsk, at the northern extremity of the lake, and
frequently to the mouth of the Selenga. Steamers ascend this river as far
as Bilyutai, near the Mongolian frontier, and bring back tea, imported via
Kiakhta, while grain, cedar nuts, salt, soda, wool and timber are shipped
on rafts down the Khilok, Chikoi and Uda (tributaries of the Selenga), and
manufactured goods are taken up the river for export to China. Attempts are
being made to render the Angara navigable below Irkutsk down to the
Yenisei. In winter, when the lake is covered with ice 3 ft. to 4 ft. thick,
it is crossed on sledges from Listvinichnoe to Misovaya. But a highway,
available all the year round, was made in 1863-1864 around its southern
shore, partly by blasting the cliffs, and it is now (since 1905) followed
by the trans-Siberian railway. Further, a powerful ice-breaker is used to
ferry trains across from Listvinichnoe to Misovaya.

AUTHORITIES.--Drizhenko, "Hydrographic Reconnoitring of Lake Baikal," in
_Izvestia Russ. Geogr. Soc._ (1897, 2); Russian Addenda to Ritter's _Asia,
East Siberia, Baikal,_ &c. (1895); Chersky's Geological Map of Shores of
Lake Baikal, 6-2/3 m. to the inch, in _Zapiski_ of _Ru