The Pamir highlands between the base of the Tian-shan mountains and the eastern buttresses of the Hindu Kush unite these two great divides, enclosing the Gobi depression on the west; and they would again be united on the east but for the transverse valley of the Amur, which parts the Khingan mountains from the Yablonoi system to the east of Lake Baikal.
The Amur proper flows at first in a south-easterly direction for about Boo m., as far as long.
Its principal tributaries from the south are the Sungari, which the Chinese consider to be the true head-river of the Amur, and the Usuri; from the north it receives the Oldoi, Zeya, Bureya, Kur, Gorin and Amgun.
South of this enclosed depression is another great hydrographic barrier which parts it from the low plains of the Amur, of China, Siam and India, bordered by the shallows of the Yellow Sea and the shoals which enclose the islands of Japan and Formosa, all of them once an integral part of the continent.
Starting from the Amur river and reaching along the eastern margin of the Gobi desert towards the sources of the Hwangho, it merges into the Altyn-tagh and the Kuen-lun, forming the northern face of the vast Tibetan highlands which are bounded on the south by the Himalaya.
