FORMATION OF SEDIMENTARY STRATA. 477 



amount of deposit, than one foot of recent alluvial mud. 

 If we said one foot of chalk represented six feet of 

 mud, or six centuries of deposit, it is probable that 

 we should rather overstate than understate the facts. 



This is as far as we feel justified in carrying- the question 

 of the supposed origin of the great plain of Northern 

 India and we must leave our readers to draw their own 

 conclusions from what we have stated. At the same time 

 we must remind them that further to the northward, in 

 Central Asia, there are other great plains, whose vast 

 extent dwarfs the size of the Indian plain entirely into 

 insignificance. Similar questions might arise with regard 

 to their formation also, but comparatively little is known 

 about them at the present time. They represent our 

 Region of the Great Plains " upon the Asiatic con- 

 tinent, and are generally known as " the steppes. " 



Listen for a moment to a descriptive outline of them, 

 from the pen of Mr. J. G. Kohl, culled from a 

 translation of the second volume of his great work on 

 " Russia : " 



" The Steppes extend " (he says) " from the borders of 

 Hungary to those of China. They constitute an almost un- 

 interrupted plain, covered in spring and summer by a luxur- 

 iant herbage, and in winter by drifting snows. The slight 

 undulations rarely seem to assume the character of hills. 

 The most singular characteristic is the total absence of trees. 

 Countless herds of cattle roam over these noble pasture 

 grounds, on which a calf, born at the foot of the great wall 

 of China, might eat its way along, till it arrived a well-fattened 

 ox on the banks of the Dneister, to figure at the Odessa 

 markets." * 



* Russia, by J. G. Kohl, I Vol. 8vo., London, 1844. (N.B. A 

 translated digest of 8 or 9 vols. by this author, of which vol. ii. relates 

 mostly to the Steppe country). 



