to pray from his heart. The lake is held in superstitious reverence by
the natives. It is called by them Svyatoe More, or the Holy Lake, and
they believe that no Christian was ever lost in its waters, for even
when a person is drowned in it the waves always take the trouble to cast
the body on shore.

Its length is 400 miles, its width an average of 35 miles, covers an
area of 14,000 square miles and has a circumference of nearly 1,200
miles, being the largest fresh water lake in the Old World, and, next to
the Caspian and the Aral, the largest inland sheet of water in Asia. Its
shores are bold and rugged and very picturesque, in some places 1,000
feet high. In the surrounding forests are found game of the largest
description, bears, deer, foxes, wolves, elk and these afford capital
sport for the sportsmen of Irkutsk.

Around the coasts are many mineral springs, hot and cold, which have a
great reputation among the Irkutskians. The hot springs of Yurka, on the
Selenga, 200 versts from Verchore Udevisk and not many miles from the
eastern shore of the Baikal, which have a temperature of 48 degrees
Reaumur and whose waters are strongly impregnated with sulphur, are
a favorite watering place for natives as well as Russians and
Buriats.--_Herald Correspondent with the Jeannette Search Expedition_.

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TRAVELING SAND HILLS ON LAKE ONTARIO.