Russia; the Valdai tablelands, where all the great rivers of Russia take their rise; the broad and gently sloping meridional belt of the Ural Mountains; and lastly the Taimyr, Tunguzka and Verkhoyansk ranges in Siberia, which, notwithstanding their sub-Arctic position, do not reach the snow-line.
To General the west of Kashgar the central depression is limited by physio- the meridional range of Sarikol and the great elevation graphs* of the Pamir, of which the Sarikol is the eastern face.
On the western edge of the Kashgar plains, the political boundary between Russia and China is defined by the meridional range of Sarikol.
Eastwards of this the great Kashgar depression, which includes the Tarim desert, separates Russia from the vast sterile highlands of Tibet; and a continuous series of desert spaces of low elevation, marking the limits of a primeval inland sea from the Sarikol meridional watershed to the Khingan mountains on the western borders of Manchuria, divide her from the northern provinces of China.
It may be said to spring from the head of the Taghdumbash Pamir, where it unites with the great meridional system of Sarikol stretching northwards, and the yet more impressive mountain barrier of Murtagh, the northern base of which separates China from the semi-independent territory of Kanjut.