Chapter 27—Baikal and Angara
Lake Baikal is situated seventeen hundred feet above the level of the sea. Its length is about six hundred miles, its breadth seventy. Its depth is not known. Madame de Bourboulon states that, according to the boatmen, it likes to be spoken of as “Madam Sea.” If it is called “Sir Lake,” it immediately lashes itself into fury. However, it is reported and believed by the Siberians that a Russian is never drowned in it.
This immense basin of fresh water, fed by more than three hundred rivers, is surrounded by magnificent volcanic mountains. It has no other outlet than the Angara, which after passing Irkutsk throws itself into the Yenisei, a little above the town of Yeniseisk. As to the mountains which encase it, they form a branch of the Toungouzes, and are deri
