no reason why motor trucks could not make the trip and am
intending to use them on my next expedition. Between Panj-kiang and
Turin, the first and third telegraph stations, there is some bad
going in spots, but a well made truck with a broad wheel base and a
powerful engine certainly could negotiate the sand areas without
difficulty. After Turin, where the Gobi may be said to end, the road
is like a boulevard.

The motor service for passengers which the Chinese Government
maintains between Kalgan and Urga is a branch of the Peking-Suiyuan
Railway and has proved successful after some initial difficulties
due to careless and inexperienced chauffeurs. Although the service
badly needs organization to make it entirely safe and comfortable,
still it has been effective even in its crude form.

At the present time a great part of the business which is done with
the Mongols is by barter. The Chinese merchants extend credit to the
natives for material which they require and accept in return cattle,
horses, hides, wool, etc., to be paid at the proper season. In
recent years Russian paper _rubles_ and Chinese silver have been the
currency of the country, but since the war Russian money has so
depreciated that it is now practically valueless. Mongolia greatly
needs banking facilities and under the new political conditions
undoubtedly these will be materially increased.

A great source of wealth to Mongolia lies in her magnificent forests
of pine, spruce, larch and birch which stretch away in an almost
unbroken line of green to far beyond the Siberian frontier. As yet
but small inroads have been made upon these forests, and as I stood
one afternoon upon the summit of a mountain gazing over the miles of
timbered hills below me, it seemed as though here at least was an
inexhaustible supply of splendid lumber. But no more pernicious term
was ever coined than "inexhaustible supply!" I wondered, as I
watched the sun drop into the somber masses of the forest, how long
these splendid hills would remain inviolate. Certainly not many
years after the Gobi Desert has been crossed by lines of steel, and
railroad sheds have replaced the gold-roofed temples of sacred Urga.

We are at the very beginning of the days of flying, and no land
which contains such magnificent spruce can keep its treasure boxes
unspoiled for very long. Even as I write, aeroplanes are waiting in
Peking to make their first flight across Mongolia. The desert nomads
have