they are dried before they reach north-western Mongolia. The
yearly amount of rain at Urga (altitude 4350 ft., at the northern
foot of the Kentei Mountains) is only 912 in., and the average
temperatures are: year 27° F., January −18°, July 64°; a minimum
of −35° F. has been observed. The climate of Ulyasutai (5400 ft.)
may be taken as typical, its average temperatures being: year
31·6°, January −12°, July 66°.
The geology is still very imperfectly known. The plateau is built up of granites, gneisses and crystalline schists of Archean and probably Primary age. Coal is known to exist to the south-east of Kobdo, in the Tannu-ola, and in the basin of the Yenisei, but its age is unknown (fresh-water Jurassic ?). Graphite and some silver ores have also been found.
The fauna is a mixture of the Siberian and the Daurian—the latter penetrating up the valleys of the Selenga basin. The chief towns of north-west Mongolia are Urga, Ulyasutai, Kobdo and Ulankom.
South-eastern Mongolia is the part of Mongolia which lies on the eastern slope of the Great Khingan Mountains, entering like a wedge between the lower course of the Nonni river and the middle Sungari. Chiefly owing to the dryness of climate, its physical characteristics are similar to those of Mongolia proper, except that the altitudeSouth-eastern Mongolia. of the plains is much lower. This portion of Mongolia is also much better watered, namely, by the Khatsyr, the Lao-ho and the Shara-muren, all flowing from the Khingan Mountains eastwards, and the last making the frontier between Mongolia and the Chinese province of Chihli.
Population.—The population of the whole of Mongolia is estimated at about 5,000,000. It consists of Mongols—Eastern Mongols and Kalmucks in the west—various Turkish tribes, Chinese and Tunguses. The Mongols proper, with the exception of those who inhabit north-west Mongolia, may be divided into northern and southern (more properly north-western and south-eastern) Mongols. The former, belonging to the Khalkas, occupy the Gobi and the regions of the Kentei Mountains and Khingan Mountains, while the second, divided into numerous minor branches, roam over south-eastern and southern Mongolia. The principal occupation of the Mongols is cattle-breeding, and Russian writers estimate that on an average each yurta, or family, has about 50 sheep, 25 horses, 15 horned cattle and 10 camels. The transport of goods is their next most important occupation. It is calculated that 100,000 camels are used for the transport of tea only from Kalgan to Siberia, and that no less than 1,200,000 camels and 300,000 ox-carts are employed in the internal caravan trade. Agriculture is only carried on sporadically, chiefly in the south, where the Mongols have been taught by the Chinese. Various domestic industries are also carried on. The trade is chiefly concentrated at Urga, Ulyasutai and Kobdo in north-west Mongolia; Kalgan, Kuku-khoto, Kuku-erghi, Dolon-nur and Biru-khoto in southern and south-eastern Mongolia; and at Kerulen in the north-east.
Administration.—Before the Manchurian conquest the Mongols were governed by their own feudal princes, who regarded themselves as being descended from seven different ancestors, all, however of the same kin. Each group of principalities constituted a separate aimak, and each principality a separate hoshun. Under Manchu rule the aimaks became converted into the same number of military corps, each composed of so many hoshuns as military units. Each of these again was divided into sumuns or squadrons, each containing 150 families. In case a hoshun contained more than 6 sumuns, every 6 of the latter were organized into a regiment—tsalan. Four Manchu tsian-tsuns, or governor-generals, acted as chiefs of the troops, and the prince of each aimak, nominated from Peking, was considered as the lieutenant or assistant of his respective Manchu chief. The hoshuns were subject to their own princes, each of whom had a military adviser, generally a Manchu. Their internal or tribal affairs were in the hands of the princes, those which concerned a whole aimak being settled at gatherings of the princes under the eldest of them, named khan. This organization was maintained by the Manchu rulers, the khan being elected from among the princes, and the latter having each an adviser, tusalakchi, nominated from Peking.
Mongolia is now administered by a Lifan Yuen or superintendency with headquarters at Peking. Excluding the territory to which the name of Mongolia is geographically applied, but which is included in the provinces of Shansi and Chihli, Mongolia is divided into inner and outer divisions. Inner Mongolia, lying, between the desert of Gobi, China proper and Manchuria, is divided into 24 aimaks. There are two military governors-general and two commissaries of the viceroy of Chihli, having control of civil matters. One of each pair of officials is stationed at Kalgan, and the other at Jehol. Outer Mongolia, the remainder of the territory, has 4 aimaks, three of which are under hereditary khans. There is a Chinese imperial agent at Urga.
Authorities.—The following works in Russian are the most important: Prjevalsky, Mongolia and the Land of the Tanguts (1875), and his Third and Fourth Journey (1883 and 1888); G. N. Potanin, Sketches of North-West Mongolia (1881–1883) The Tangut-Tibet Border of China and Central Mongolia (1893 seq.); V. Pyevtsoff, Sketch of a Journey to Mongolia, &c. (Omsk, 1883); D. Pozdnéeff, Towns of North Mongolia (1880); Mongolia and the Mongols (1896 and 1899); and the article “Mongolia” in Russian Encycl. Dictionary, vol. xix. (1896); G. and M. Grum Grzimailo, Description of a Journey to Western China (1898–1899); V. Pyevtsoff, K. Bogdanovitch, V. I. Roborovsky and P. K. Kozloff, The Tibet Expeditions (1886–1902); V. Obrucheff, Central Asia, Northern China and the Nanshan (1900–1901); Z. Matusovskiy, Geogr. Descr. of Chinese Empire (1888); Batorskiy, Essay of a Military and Statistic Sketch (1890); A. Woyeikoff, Climates of the Earth (1884); Mongolia and Kham (Imperial Russian Geographical Society’s Expedition, 1899–1901). See also R. Pumpelly, Geol. Researches (Washington, 1866); Ney Elias, in Journal R.G.S. (1873); Baron Richthofen, China (1877); J. Gilmour, Among the Mongols (1883); W. W. Rockhill, Journey through Mongolia and Thibet (1894); F. E. Younghusband, The Heart of a Continent (1896). (P. A. K.)
MONGOLS, the name of one of the chief ethnographical divisions of the Asiatic, peoples (see also Turks). The early history of the Mongols, like that of all central-Asian tribes, is extremely obscure. Even the meaning of the name “Mongol”
is a disputed point, though a general consent is now given to Schott’s etymology of the word from mong, meaning brave.
From the earliest and very scanty notice we have of the Mongols
in the history of the T’ang dynasty of China (A.D. 619–690) and
in works of later times, it appears that their original camping-grounds
were along the courses of the Kerulen, Upper Nonni
and Argun rivers. But in the absence of all historical particulars
of their origin, legend, as is usual, has been busy with their
early years. The Mongol historian Sanang Setzen gives currency
to the myth that they sprang from a blue wolf; and the soberest
story on record is that their ancestor Budantsar was miraculously
conceived of a Mongol widow. By craft and violence Budantsar
gained the chieftainship over a tribe living in the neighbourhood
of his mother’s tent, and thus left a heritage to his son.
Varying fortunes attended the descendants of Budantsar, but
on the whole their power gradually increased, until Yesukai,
the father of Jenghiz Khan, who was eighth in descent from
Budantsar, made his authority felt over a considerable area.
How this dominion was extended under the rule of Jenghiz Khan
is shown in the article Jenghiz Khan, and when that great
conqueror was laid to rest in the valley of Kilien in 1227 he left
to his sons an empire which stretched from the China Sea to the
banks of the Dnieper.
Over the whole of this vast region Jenghiz Khan set his second surviving son Ogotai or Ogdai as khakan, or chief khan, while to the family of his deceased eldest son Juji he assigned the country from Kayalik and Khwarizm to the borders of Bulgar and Saksin “where’er the hoofs of Mongol horse had tramped”; to Jagatai, his eldest surviving son, the territory from the borders of the Uighur country to Bokhara; while Tulé, the youngest, received charge of the home country of the Mongols, the care of the imperial encampment and family, and of the archives of the state. The appointment of Ogdai as his successor being contrary to the usual Mongol custom Ogdai Khan.of primogeniture, gave rise to some bitterness of feeling among the followers of Jagatai. But the commands of Jenghiz Khan subdued these murmurs, and Ogdai was finally led to the throne by his dispossessed brother amid the plaudits of the assembled Mongols. In accordance with Mongol customs, Ogdai signalized his accession to the throne by distributing among his grandees presents from his father’s treasures, and to his father’s spirit he sacrificed forty maidens and numerous horses. Once fairly on the throne, he set himself vigorously to
