34 



IM'SSTA 



south), and appear tut islands in the niiilst of corn- 

 fields and rich meadows, adorned with a great 

 variety of flowers. The numbers of s|>ecies of 

 iln 1'rin^ plant-, all belonging to the middle Euro- 

 pean flora, varies from 800 in the north to 1600 

 in the south-west. The lieech, so characteristic of ; 

 the wi-.--t.Tii European flora, does not in Kussia 

 extend farther than the frontiers of Poland (it 

 reappears in the south-west ami in the Crimea); 

 and in the north -e;t.-t tin- liotanist finds an admix- 

 ture of species of Siberian extraction. A line drawn 

 from Kietf to the sources of the Ural would 

 separate roughly the forest- region from an inter- 

 mediate region the Ante-Steppe in which the 

 forests and the Steppes struggle with alternating 

 success for every square mile of land ; and anotln-r 

 line, almost parallel to the above, drawn from 

 Ekaterinoslav to Uralsk, may be taken as the 

 limit of (c) the Steppe*. Tnese are immense 

 plains covered with grass, but devoid of forests, 

 very much like the prairies of America and the 

 pushtas of Hungary. A great variety of plants 

 characteristic of the Steppes are found in this belt 

 in addition to the species that occur in middle 

 Kussia ; while towards the Caspian a great number 

 of species characteristic of the Aral-Caspian 

 deserts penetrate into European Russia. Finally, 

 (i/) the flora of the Mediterranean region occupies a 

 narrow strip along the southern coast of the Crimea. 

 No less than 1650 species of flowering plants, many 

 of them quite unknown in the continental part of 

 Kussia, have been described from that narrow strip 

 of land. The fauna of European Russia is very 

 much like that of middle Europe, the chief differ- 

 ence being the occurrence of a few species, now 

 extinct in Europe but still inhabiting Asia, and in 

 the south-east there are several species character- 

 istic of central Asia. Wolves ana bears are com- 

 mon in the north. The reindeer is still met with 

 in one or two governments ; the wild boar and the 

 bison are each limited to one district; the elk, the 

 lynx, the glutton, the beaver, once common, are 

 now very scarce. 



Baltic Provinces. The chief physical features of 

 Russia, briefly indicated under the preceding head- 

 ings, give a general idea of the country ; out its 

 different parts differ so widely from one another 

 that they must be dealt with separately. Accord- 

 ingly we review, first, the territory north-west of the 

 central plateau, then the plateau itself, and finally 

 the lowlands to the south of it, proceeding in each 

 case from west to east. 



The Baltic region, comprising Courland, Livonia, 

 West Kovno, and part of Esthonia, is an undulating 

 plain 300 to 800 feet above the sea, cut up by 

 ravines and taking a decidedly hilly aspect in what 

 is known as 'Wendish Switzerland.' A few flat 

 summits attain more than 1000 feet above sea- 

 level. Owing to the influence of the sea, this 

 region enjoys a milder climate than the rest of 

 Russia, and has maintained its excellent forests, 

 chiefly of oak. The soil is of moderate fertility, 

 and is well cultivated on the estates of the German 

 lanillonU ; but the peasants, who belong to con- 

 quered races (Esthonians, Letts, and Count, akin 

 to the Finns), and have no land of their own, live 

 in a condition of deplorable poverty. This region 

 is watered by the Dwina, and has the important 

 ports of Riga, Lilian, and Reval. 



The La&e-reyion. A depression, the surface of 

 which is less than 300 feet above sea-level, 

 stretches between the central plateau and the hills 

 of Finland and Olonctz, from the Gulf of Kiga to 

 Lake Onega, and is continued over a low water- 

 shed towards the lowlands of Archangel. It has 

 but recently emerged from the Postglacial sea, and 

 is dotted with marshes and numberless lakes, of 

 which Peipus, Ilmen, Ladoga, Onega, and Yodlo 



are the largest. Low, flat ridges, partly carved out 

 of the rocks by the ice-sheet, and partly of morainic 

 origin, intersect the country ; the soil is unfertile, 

 and mostly too wet for the successful prosecution 

 of either agriculture or cattle-breeding. The 

 marshy forests are mostly thickets of thin firs, 

 birches, aspens, &c., of poor aspect. Numberless 

 liver-, connect the lakes with one another, or with 

 the Gulf of Finland. It is in the lake-region, at 

 the head of the Gulf of Finland, that Russia has 

 its capital, St Petersburg, surrounded by nearly 

 uninhabitable marshy plains. 



The plains of the lower Dwina and M<-/eii, which 

 fringe the White Sea and the Arctic Ocean, bear 

 the same character, the vegetation being, of course, 

 even poorer than in the lake-region ; while the 

 coasts of the ocean are fringed by a belt of treeless 

 tuntlras. To the north-west of the lake-region lies, 

 the peninsula of Kola, a marshy tableland, in- 

 habited by only a few Lapps. And in the far 

 north-east, between the Timansky ridge and the 

 Urals, there is an immense territory the Petchora 

 region covered with tundras in "the north, and 

 with impenetrable forests in the south ; it is thinly 

 inhabited by some 10,000 Russians settled along 

 the courses of the rivers, and by Samoyedes and 

 Zyrian hunters in the forests. 



The central plateau contains the most populous 

 agricultural and industrial parts of European 

 Russia. Its physical aspects vary, however, a good 

 deal in the different parts. 



The Lithuanian provinces of Kovno, Vilna, and 

 part of Grodno and Vitebsk, which occupy the 

 north-west, are drained by the Niemen and the 

 upper Dwina, and embrace the eastern continua- 

 tion of the broad swelling, 600 to 700 feet high, 

 which separates Poland from Enst Prussia, ana is 

 known as the 'Baltic Lake-region.' It is dotted 

 with numberless small lakes and ponds, and has 

 immense forests, which, however, are being rapidly 

 cleared. One, the Byelovyezh rorwt (.s.'iiisq. in.), 

 still preserves its primitive aspect, and shelters a 

 herd of bison, formerly common throughout Europe, 

 but now only fomm in Lithuania and the Cau- 

 casus. The population consists chiefly of Lithu- 

 anians and Letts, mixed with White Russians in 

 the east, and with Jews and Tartars. The Poles 

 are the principal owners of land ; they also con- 

 stitute the bulk of the artisan population in the 

 towns. On the whole, the region is very poor, and 

 the condition of thepeasantry is deplorable. 



White Russia. Trie territory watered by the 

 upper Dnieper and its right-hand tributaries, com- 

 prising the governments of MoghilefT, Minsk, and 

 southern Vitebsk, as well as parts of Grodno, Vilna, 

 and Smolensk, is one of the poorest regions of Russia. 

 About one-tenth of the total area is covered with 

 marshes ; and the soil that is not under water con- 

 sists chiefly of peat-bogs, hard l>oulder-clay, and 

 sands. The depression bet ween the Pripet and the 

 Berezina called Polyesie ('the woods'), also spoken 

 of as the Rokitno swamp, is for hundreds of miles 

 an almost uninterrupted mar-liy forest, flooded 

 with water in the spring. \Vhite' 1,'ussiims me tin- 

 predominant element in the population of tin- 

 country; lining to live on a most unproducthi 

 soil, and ruined as they were by Polish and Russian 

 landowners, they are in extreme poverty, and prcat 

 numbers of them wander over Russia in search 

 of labour, especially in navvy's work. 



Little Kussia, or Ukraine. Little Russia, com- 

 prising the governments of Tchernigoff, Kieff, Pol- 

 la via, and part of Kharkoff, as well as Voihynia 

 and Podolia on the spurs of the Carpathians, 

 belongs to the richest and most populous partial 

 Russia. The soil is mostly a rich black earth, 

 and assumes farther aoutli tin- aspect of fine 

 grassy steppes, or prairies, yielding rich crops 



