The most important of the new railways is the Siberian, of which the first section, Chelyabinsk to Omsk, was opened in December 1895, and which, except for a short section round Lake Baikal, in 1901 was completed right through to Stryetensk, on the Shilka, the head of navigation on the Shilka and the Amur, 2710 m.
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.
On arrival at the supreme Mongol court - either that on the Imyl river (near Lake Ala-kul and the present Russo-Chinese frontier in the Altai), or more probably at or near Karakorum itself, south-west of Lake Baikal - Andrew found Kuyuk Khan dead, poisoned, as the envoy supposed, by Batu's agents.
Lake Baikal receives over 300 streams, mostly short mountain torrents, besides the Upper Angara, which enters its north-east extremity, the Barguzin, on the east, and the Selenga on the south-east.
The Irkut no longer reaches the Baikal, though it once did so.