The Trans-Siberian railway was a military necessity if Russia was to exercise dominion throughout Siberia and maintain a port on the Yellow Sea or the Sea of Japan.
South of this enclosed depression is another great hydrographic barrier which parts it from the low plains of the Amur, of China, Siam and India, bordered by the shallows of the Yellow Sea and the shoals which enclose the islands of Japan and Formosa, all of them once an integral part of the continent.
It forms part of the long line of islands which are interposed as a protective barrier between the Asiatic coast and the outer Pacific, and is the cause of the immunity from typhoons enjoyed by the ports of China from Amoy to the Yellow Sea.
Bering Sea is bounded by the Alaskan Peninsula and the chain of the Aleutian Islands; the sea of Okhotsk is enclosed by the peninsula of Kamchatka and the Kurile Islands; the Sea of Japan is shut off by Sakhalin Island, the Japanese Islands and the peninsula of Korea; the Yellow Sea is an opening between the coast of China and Korea; the China Sea lies between the Asiatic continent and the island of Formosa, the Philippine group, Palawan and Borneo.
The Yalu rises in the mountains to the south of the plain, and empties into the Yellow Sea.
