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22

but growing thickly , in some places, it will , as I have said, require clearing. Points where timber is very thick have certainly been avoided as much as possible.

The rise of water in streams has been generally the stumbling block of the explorers and settlers of South eastern Siberia, and we know some instances, where villages have been washed away on the Amoor and in different places between Ajan and Taksutsk. The same has frequently happened as I understand, to the Russian government telegraph line on the Amoor and the Engineers think to rebuild it entirely. We must endeavor not to fall into the same errors, and I believe that the Russian line existing now along the Amoor on a distance  of 800 versts can serve to us as a sort of measure or example. I have directed Mahood to get well acquainted with the telegraph Engineers in Nikolaersk and to ascertain about the defects of the line. We come now to a very important point - the selection of the mode for transportation during the construction of the line.

In locating the route of our line I have availed myself of rivers as much as I considered it possible but you know that streams in mountain countries cannot be navigable on long distances even for the smallest canoes, becoming the more we ascend them , shallow, strong , crooked and rapid, this is the general character of the rivers