INTRODUCTION
livelihood by the easy method of tending flocks and herds, could never be expected to adopt Western habits. The only gold-mining concern, the Mongolore Mining Company, started by Mr. Victor von Grotte, to develop the enormous mineral wealth in North Mongolia, was obliged to import Chinese labour from 1000 miles away, simply because the Mongols refused at any price to work the mines. This company so far has merely scratched the mineral wealth in one small area of the Yero River, and the country cries out for capital and enterprising men to undertake the development of gold, silver, coal, and lead, that abound in the northern valleys. With a railway from Verhne Udinsk to Kiachta, Kiachta to Urga, and from Urga across the Gobi Desert to join up with an extension of the Peking-Kalgan Railway to the west at Kweihua-Cheng, trade possibilities will arrive for the employment of much capital and commercial enterprise. Russia will welcome foreign traders, and before many years this railway, which will bring Peking four days nearer to London, must be a "fait accompli." To the commercial man, the miner, and the sportsman, Mongolia opens up a fine field in the near future, and even the eastern portion of the Gobi Desert could, by the employment of artesian wells, be converted into grazing land.
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