s very little breeze
when we crossed, but the steamer was tossed quite roughly. The winds
blowing from the mountains along the lake, frequently sweep with great
violence and drive unlucky soudnas upon the rocks.

The water of the lake is so clear that one can see to a very great
depth. The lake is nearly four hundred miles long by about thirty or
thirty-five in width; it is twelve hundred feet above the sea level,
and receives nearly two hundred tributaries great and small. Its
outlet, the Angara, is near the southwestern end, and is said to carry
off not more than a tenth of the water that enters the lake. What
becomes of the surplus is a problem no one has been able to solve. The
natives believe there is an underground passage to the sea, and sonic
geologists favor this opinion. Soundings of 2000 feet have been made
without finding bottom. On the western shore the mountains rise
abruptly from the water, and in some places no bottom has been found
at 400 feet depth, within pistol shot of the bank. This fact renders
navigation dangerous, as a boat might be driven on shore in even a
light breeze before her anchors found holding ground.

The natives have many superstitions concerning Lake Baikal. In their
language it is the "Holy Sea," and it would be sacrilege to term it a
lake. Certainly it has several marine peculiarities. Gulls and other
ocean birds frequent its shores, and it is the only body of fresh
water on the globe where the seal abounds. Banks of coral like those
in tropical seas exist in its depths.

[Illustration: AFTER THE EARTHQUAKE.]

The mountains on the western shore are evidently of volcanic origin,
and earthquakes are not unfrequent. A few years ago the village of
Stepnoi, about twenty miles from the mouth of the Selenga, was
destroyed by an earthquake. Part of the village disappeared beneath
the water while another part after sinking was lifted twenty or thirty
feet above its original level. Irkutsk has been frequently shaken at
the foundations, and on one occasion the walls of its churches were
somewhat damaged. Around Lake Baikal there are several hot springs,
some of which attract fashionable visitors from Irkutsk during the
season.

[Illustration: LAKE BAIKAL IN WINTER]

The natives say nobody was ever lost in Lake Baikal. When a person is
drowned there the waves invariably throw his body on shore.

The lake does not freeze until the middle of December, and sometimes
later. Its temperatur