54 NATURAL HISTORY OF 



White Sea, till they reach their utmost north and wes- 

 tern limits in the Lapland system. Vologda, and the 

 surrounding high lands of Russia, were then an insu- 

 lated prolongation of the Oural range, full of forests 

 and marshes, with the Euxine reaching to a great dis- 

 tance inland, and the Chersonesus (now Crimea) was a 

 rocky island,* At present, the southern steppes are 

 still composed of sea sands, and the vegetation consists 

 almost wholly of saline plants Artemisice, Salsolce, and 

 Salicornice and lakes of salt water are frequent in the 

 eastern parts ; but the great affluents towards the south, 

 attest the desiccation of the soil by a progressive dimi- 

 nution of water. The fact applies equally to the Volga, 

 Oural, and Don, as well as to the Borysthenes or Dnie- 

 per, and the Boug, the sacred stream of antique Russia, 

 the seat of Asa gods, when their Alan kindred still pos- 

 sessed the banks of the Don. At that period, Sacae 

 wandered over the newly recovered plains of western 

 Siberia, and the great streams just mentioned had 

 ceased to form Archipelagos of upland islands, and 

 peninsulas, between shallow creeks, marshy woods, and 

 salt water pools, not even now obliterated, t Leaving 



* Ai-petri, the culminating point of the Crimea, is esti- 

 mated at 3500 feet above the sea. 



t The Moscow uplands are given at 460 feet above the 

 level of the sea ; but the base of the hills, and water courses, 

 can scarcely amount to 100 feet, notwithstanding the con- 

 tinuous rising of the upper soil by the deposits from above, 

 washed down by rains and melting snows. In Poland, the 

 canals between the two seas require only from ten to fifteen 



