[ 296 ] 



lieve ; but principally the ftate in which we at prefeiit find the 

 immenfe plains of Southern Ruffia from Peterfburgh to Pul- 

 towa. 



These plains for fome hundred miles to the fouth of Peterf- 

 burgh are ftill a morafs, and farther fouthwards they are covered 

 with fand, pebbles and petrified fhells*. This water is not in- 

 deed fait, but neither was the Baltic fo originally, and is but 

 flightly fo at prefent, for it feems to have been formed by the 

 confluence of the various rivers that flow into it, which at lafl: 

 burft a paflage into the German fea, by communication with 

 this it became fait. At prefent there are three paflages by which 

 they communicate, at firft probably but one ; to the opening 

 of the two laft the redudion of this fea to its prefent limits 

 is owing. 



3d. The ancient communication between the Cafpian, the Lake 

 of Aral and the Black Sea, before the opening of the 1 hracian Bof- 

 phorus, which enabled thefe feas to difcharge themfelves into the 

 Mediterranean, is rendered highly probable if not demon ftrated 

 by Pallas, 3 Pallas Reife ^6S. He obferved that between the rivers 

 Sarpa and Volga, from Zarzycin down to the Calpian fea, the 

 land flopes with confiderable indentures and abrupt promontories 



as 



*Schwed. Abhand. 1773, 181, &c. 2 Bergm. ErJe kugel. 215. 



\ 



