[Illustration:  SA-GA-YAN CLIFF.]

The Russians told me that a few wreaths of smoke were visible in summer, caused probably by the decomposition of several coal seams on the upper side of the mountain.

Up to the present time no coal has been mined along the Amoor, though enough is known to exist.  The cheapness and abundance of wood will render coal of little importance for many years to come.  Nicolayevsk is supplied with coal from Sakhalin Island, where it is abundant and easily worked.  Iron ore has been discovered on the upper Amoor and in the Buryea Mountains.  Captain Anossoff proposes to erect a smelting establishment at Blagoveshchensk, supplying it with iron ore from the Buryea region and with coal from the Zeya.  Copper and silver exist in several localities, but the veins have not been thoroughly examined.  The mountains are like those in the Nerchinsk district that have yielded so richly in precious metals.

Captain Anossoff is the brother of my companion across the Pacific, and has seen ten years service in Eastern Siberia.  Most of that time he has passed on the Amoor and its tributary streams.  In many places he found rich deposits of gold, the last and best being on the Oldoi river, about a hundred miles north of Albazin.  A ton of earth yielded six hundred dollars worth of gold.  I saw the specimens which the captain took out in person.  The gold was like the best gulch or scale gold in California, with nuggets up to four or five ounces in weight.

Gold has been found in other localities.  On several tributaries of the Ousuree the Chinese have conducted washings for many years.  The Russian settlers near Posyet find gold in the streams flowing into the sea.  An engineer officer assured me the washings in that region could be made profitable.

The government has recently opened the Amoor and its tributaries to private enterprise and invited its citizens to search for gold where they please.  This is a concession in the right way, and partially abandons the claim hitherto enforced that all mines belong to the Imperial family.  Some of the surveys of Captain Anossoff have been for private parties at St. Petersburg, and the development of the mineral resources of the Amoor is confidently expected in a few years.  At present the lack of laborers and machinery is a great drawback, but as the country grows older the mining facilities will increase.  It is not impossible that a gold fever will sometime arise on the Amoor and extend to America.

Much of the country I saw along the Amoor resembles the gold-bearing regions on the Pacific coast.  While we were taking wood at a village above Sa-ga-yan I walked on shore and stopped at a little brook flowing from the hills.  Carelessly digging with a stick in the bottom of this brook I brought up some black sand, which I washed on a piece of bark.  The washing left two or three shining particles that had every appearance of gold.  I wrapped them in a leaf to carry on board the steamer, but as I afterward lost envelope and contents, the value of my discovery is to this day unknown.