The reign of the Emperor Nicholas has been distinguished by the important discovery, that portions of the great eastern regions of Siberia are highly auriferous; viz., the government of Tomsk and Teniseik, where low ridges, similarly constructed to those on the eastern flank of the Ural, and like them, trending from north to south, appear as offsets from the great east and west chain of the Altai, which separates Siberia from China. And here, it is curious to remark, that a very few years ago, this distant region did not afford a third part of the gold which the Ural produced; but by recent researches, an augmentation so rapid and extraordinary has taken place, that in 1843 the eastern Siberian tract yielded considerably upwards of two-and-a-quarter millions sterling, raising the total gold produce of the Russian empire to nearly three millions sterling!—Sir R. I. Murchison.