ALTAIC CHAIN, a range of mountains which bounds Asia on the south. It begins at the vast mountain Bogdo, passes above the head of the Irtych, and then takes a course rugged, precipitous, clothed with snow, and rich in minerals, between the Irtych and
Altamont Ob; then proceeds by the lake Telezkoi, the rise of the Ob; after which it retires, in order to comprehend the great rivers which form the Jenefei, and are locked up in these high mountains; finally, under the name of the Saimnes, is uninterrupted continued to the lake of Baikal. A branch insinuates itself between the sources of the rivers Onon and Ingoda, and those of Ichikoi, accompanied with very high mountains, running without interruption to the north-east, and dividing the river of Amur, which discharges itself into the east, in the Chinese dominions, from the river Lena and lake Baikal. Another branch stretches along the Oleema, crosses the Lena below Jakoutsk, and is continued between the two rivers Tongoufka to the Jenefei, where it is lost in wooded and morassy plains. The principal chain, rugged with sharp-pointed rocks, approaches and keeps near the shores of the sea of Ockhozt, and passing by the sources of the rivers Outh, Aldan, and Maia, is distributed in small branches, which range between the eastern rivers which fall into the Icy Sea; besides two principal branches, one of which, turning south, runs through all Kamtschatka, and is broken, from the cape Lopatka, into the numerous Kurile isles, and to the east forms another marine chain, in the islands which range from Kamtschatka to America; most of them, as well as Kamtschatka itself, distinguished by fierce vulcanoes, or the traces of volcanic fires. The last chain forms chiefly the great cape Tschutski, with its promontories and rocky broken shores.