Note 2 — Chapter XXXIII · THE SILVER AND (SO-CALLED) QUICKSILVER MINES OF NERTCHINSK.

Perhaps this is not to be wondered at, if the inaccessibility of the place be considered. It is 5,250 miles east of Petersburg, 700 miles nearly due north of Peking, about 480 north of the Chinese wall, and 1,000 miles west of the Pacific. Captain Cochrane went there half a century ago, at which time there were 1,600 convicts in the mines, and he speaks sternly of their treatment, their miserable huts, and of their haggard, worn-down, wretched, half-starved appearance. But he stayed at the place only a day, and his book does not say that he entered the mines at all.