PLAINS. 



PLAINS. 



Though, as ** hare said, pUini constitute by tar the greater portion 

 o( UMJ mrUT surface, and are very varied in their appearance, there are 

 nevertheless some which are remarkable not only for their extent, but 

 tar the peculiarities which distinguiah them ; peouliaritiea derived, no 

 doubt, in part, from the circunutanoe* attending their original forma- 

 tion, and which no subsequent cause* have been able to obliterate. 

 ThM remarkable plains are known under the names of deserts, landes 

 and heaths, steppes, aavamuu> and prairies, llanos, pampas, and selvas (or 

 forest plains) of the Marahun. DIVERTS having been already described 

 under their particular head, we shall here give a brief account of the 

 others. 



11,'iikt and Landa of nropr. From Paris to Moscow and Cazan 

 on the one hand, and to Astrakan on the other, is one continued plain, 

 comprising the lowlands of Northern France, the Netherlands, the 

 North of Germany, the whole of Prussia, and the greater part of IVhn.l 

 and Russia, as far as the first terraces of the Ural. Besides which 

 there are many minor plains, as those of Wallachia and Bulgaria, 

 Hungary, Lombardy, Ac. The ancient civilisation of Europe has 

 covered the greater part of its plains with cultivation and rendered 

 some of these lands the richest in the world (the plain* of Lombardy) ; 

 nevertheless there or* some spots which seem to defy all human efforts 

 to bring them into cultivation; such are those between the Lower 

 Volga and the Ural, of which we shall speak more fully in describing 

 the steppes, and such are the heaths and landes. ' Of these, next to 

 those of Russia, the most extensive are in Lapland and west Gothland. 

 But the chief landes and heaths, properly so called, lie in the north- 

 west of Germany. In Lower Silesia, Lusatia, and Brandenburg, there 

 is little else than sand, and also in Pomerania and Mecklenburg, 

 studded with a few hills, numerous lakes, and, along the maritime 

 parts of the Utter, having some woods of oak. In Hanover the gentle 

 acclivities are covered with heath, which extends through part of 

 HoUtein to the centre of Jutland. The most sterile parts of Hanover 

 however are the landes of Luneburg and Verden between the Elbe and 

 the Weeer, and those of Meppcn on the right bank of the Ems. Those 

 of Luneburg and its vicinity are said to cover a space of about 6000 

 square miles. These landes are covered with heath, with pine woods, 

 and marshes. On the west of the Ems, about Bentheim, there are 

 also extensive landes covered with swamps and stagnant pools. In the 

 province of the Lower Rhine, in the environs of Monjoie, between 

 Eupen and Malmedy, we again find vast landes coated with heath. In 

 France, of which country about one-twelfth is unproductive soil, there 

 are extensive landes and barren spots. That tract which extends 

 eastward from the right bank of the Adour, and gives its name to the 

 department, consists almost wholly of pools, marshes, and heath, and 

 this sterile plain extends a great way into the department of the 

 Gironde. The shingle plain of Crau, in the department of the Bouches 

 du Khone, is well known, and likewise the sterile chalky plain of 

 La Champagne Pouilleuse. In the kingdom of Naples there ore con- 

 siderable landes. 



Stepptt. This name, which is Russian, is given more particularly to 

 the extensive plain* which lie on the north-west of Asia. Considered 

 as a whole, the steppes have a character quite different from the other 

 great plains of the world, though in different parts they present 

 partially the distinguishing features which characterise the llanos, the 

 savannas, the pampas, the sandy deserts, &c. Generally speaking, they 

 consist of rich pastures intermingled with woods, barren sands, 

 iniiriatiferoug clay, and abounding in lakes, pools, and streams of salt 

 and bitter waters. 



From the sea of Azof on the west to the foot of the Little Altai' on 

 the east, there is a hand extending, in a north-east direction, from the 

 mouth of the Kuban towards Torusk, where the undulations of the 

 plain prevent the egress of the waters, which, percolating through a 

 highly saline soil, are collected in the hollows into innumerable lakes 

 and pools of salt water, which give a peculiar feature and interest to 

 these steppes. 



Farther northward, the Siberian plains have a general slope towards 

 the Frozen Ocean, and are intersected by the great rivers Obi, Yenisei, 

 and Lena; between the lower courses of which extend immense 

 frozen marshes, covered with moss, and interspersed with a few sandy 

 and clayey hills crowned with tufts or clumps of stunted birch and 

 other dwarf shrubs. 



The greater port of what are properly called th steppes form a con- 

 siderable part of the country known as Independent Tartary, which is 

 inhabited by the nomadic hordes of the Kirghis Coeeaks. 



The steppe which lies on the north-west of the Caspian, bounded by 

 the Caucasus, the sea of Azof, the lower course of the Don, and thence 

 to the Ural or lalk, is inhabited by the Cossaks of the Black Sea and 

 the Nogay Tartars. The whole of this steppe is characterised as 

 composed of hills of a moving shelly sand, between which are beautiful 

 green pastures, and marshy hollows with reeds and clumps of trees, 

 among which are willows, poplars, and the wild olive. There are nume- 

 rous salt streams and brine pools, barren patches covered with a saline 

 efflorescence, and in many places tufts of saline plants. The fertility 

 i if the hollows seems due to a sheet of water which, coming from the 

 hilly range called Obstchel Sirt, a branch of the Ural, flows imme- 

 diately below the sandy surface, being probably retained by an im- 

 1-rvious substratum. 

 Between the lalk on the west and a low ridge of hills on the east, 



which may be regarded as a south-eastern continuation of the Ural, 

 and which extends between the Aral and the Caspian, is another 

 steppe similar in character to that already described. It is occupied 

 by the Kirghis of the little horde ; while what is called the central 

 or middle horde ranges over the vast steppe contained between the 

 lake Aral and the Sir on the south, the low hills already mentioned 

 on the west, the Ouloustaou and Naourgiuskaia ranges on the north, 

 and the Sarasou on the east. With the exception of the Sir, all 

 the waters of this great basin lose themselves in the sand, or 

 in lakes more or lew salt, the principal of which is the famous 

 AksakalBari. 



To the north of the last-mentipucd steppe lies the great steppe or 

 plain of Ischim, which extends from the eastern slope of the southern 

 extremity of the Ural, across the Tobol, to the Irtish. It takes iU 

 name from the river Ischim, which, dividing it nearly in two, falls into 

 the Irtish near PetropavloffskoL The north-east port of this steppe 

 towards Tara, on the left bank of the Irtish, is covered with dense 

 forests abounding in gome and rich in firs. 



Crossing the Irtish, we enter the grout steppe of Baraba, occupying 

 all the space between that river and the Upper Obi. This steppe, 

 lying nearer the foot of the mountainous district of the south an> 

 contains numerous hikes and pools, particularly in its southern 

 portion. This district is in many places extremely fertile, and along 

 the water-courses the grass grows luxuriantly. The north and north- 

 west parts are wooded, but the more southern, those lying along the 

 Irtish and towards the Altai, have few trees, and are less fertile. The 

 lake Tschany, the largest and nearly the most northerly of the great 

 group of lakes, abounds in fiah ; the surrounding country is extremely 

 fertile, and abounds in aquatic game, the chief nourishment of the 

 Tartar tribes who live dispersed along the frontiers of this canton. 

 Interspersed with the sandy, barren, and saline spots, are many places 

 where there is excellent land for tillage, in which grain and flax 

 succeed well. The Kirghis of the great horde occupy a more moun- 

 tainous country to the south of the Sarasou. 



Besides these great steppes, there are numerous other patches of 

 greater or less extent and similar general character in Central Siberia, 

 I reaching from the Ural to the Lena. 



Previous to the subjection of the wandering hordes to Russia, that 

 country had lines of fortified posts for its protection against these 

 predatory bands; but now that the different hordes of Kirghis 

 acknowledge the supremacy of Russia, and their several chiefs are paid 

 by the Russian government, many of these posts have been abandoned, 

 and open villages are now multiplying along the roads by which the 

 Russian caravans travel towards Kiachta and in the direction of the 

 mining districts of the Altai. The inhabitants of these villages, some 

 of which are very large, ore the only stationary population of the 

 steppes. The wandering tribes are very numerous, and are continually 

 shifting their ground to find food for their numerous cattle, con- 

 of horses, camels, horned cattle, sheep, and goats. 



The extent of the steppes properly so called, excluding the marshy 

 plains of the north, may be about 1,000,000 square miles. 



Samiuuu or Prairut. The central part of North America, from the 

 Frozen Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, may be regarded as one con- 

 tinuous plain, divided by a low water-parting into the north-eastern 

 basin, whose waters flow into the Polar Sea, Hudson's Bay, and, by 

 the great lakes and St. Lawrence, into the Atlantic, and the basin 

 of the Missouri and Mississippi whose waters fall into the Gulf ol 

 Mexico. 



This immense tract of country, estimated by Humboldt at 2.430,000 

 square miles, is extremely varied in climate, in character and pro- 

 ductions; for while the northern portion which is watered by the 

 Mackenzie, Back's River, the Churchill, and the Saskatchewan, i 

 demned for the greater part of the year to all the horrors of an iron 

 bound soil and stunted polar vegetation, palms and other tropical 

 trees grow at the extremity of the southern portion. It is this 

 southern basin, watered by the mighty Missouri and Mississippi, with 

 their abundant affluents, that contains those extensive grass-covered 

 tracts, the savannas and prairies. They lie chiefly on the western side 

 of the Mississippi, though along the Illinois river they are found to the 

 extent of 1,200,000 acres, and also in other parts of the basin east of 

 the Mississippi. But the whole of the territory from the right bank of 

 the Mississippi to the mountains is not one continued savanna, or even 

 an unbroken horizontal plain ; for it rises Cowards the mountains, 

 many of whose spurs are reached by the Missouri, which has < 

 their extremities into bluffs. These ridges form the boundaries of the 

 basins of the great tributary streams, the Platte, the Kansas, the Osage, 

 the Arkansas, Ac. Woods are also occasionally met with along the 

 Mississippi and other watercourses, as likewise in Arkansas ; and in 

 some places, as between the Platto and the Missouri, there are exten- 

 sive surfaces of moving sands resembling those of the African desert. 

 Elsewhere again, as from the mouth of the Arkansas along the Missis- 

 sippi, a distance of 450 miles long and 40 miles broad, the soil is all 

 .xu.iinps and pools, with abundance of trees : this is also the case above 

 Illinois lake and elsewhere. Along the upper Missouri, from the 

 territory of the Mandans, is an interminable plain without trees or 

 shrubs except in the marshy spots. In various parts, but more espe- 

 cially along the borders of the great plain, and in Arkansas, salt is 

 found. 



