ST. PETERSBURG TO POLAND. 15 



sand hills rise and disappear like the waves of the ocean. 

 The heaps of waste from the Olkuez mines are covered 

 with sand to the depth of four fathoms/ 



So far as is known to me, no attempts have yet been 

 made to fix and utilise these drifting sands : but that they, 

 as well as those which have been arrested and rendered 

 productive in other lands Hungary, France, Spain, Portu- 

 gal, Holland, Denmark, and Northern Germany, may be 

 brought under control I cannot doubt. 



But in passing through the country one sees more of 

 forests than of sand drifts. 



Of Poland an anonymous writer early in the present 

 century tells : ' Poland is an extremely level country, 

 diversified by few or no eminences, except a ridge of hills 

 branching off from the Carpathian mountains, which 

 anciently formed the southern boundary of the country. 

 The rivers are unadorned with banks, and flow lazily in a 

 flat monotonous course, insomuch that when, as previously 

 stated, heavy falls of rain take place, the country for many 

 miles is completely inundated. The number and extent 

 of marshes and forests, neither of which the Poles have 

 seemed very anxious to remove, uniformly strike strangers 

 as one of the great characteristics of Poland. The soil, 

 which is chiefly either of a clayey or marshy description, 

 is, in many places, so extremely fertile, that with the least 

 cultivation it is calculated to produce the most luxurious 

 crops of corn ; and it is distinguished for the richest pas- 

 tures in Europe. Agriculture with the Poles, however, is 

 completely in its infancy. For many ages they neglected 

 this useful art, as they neglected every art of peace and 

 domestic comfort ; they were a warlike people ; and, 

 besides, the produce of the fields was not the property of 

 the peasants, but of their masters, and they were themselves 

 doomed, without hope of advancement, to continue in the 

 same rank of life, whatever had been their industry or 

 their skill, But though these disabilities have now been 

 greatly removed, though the Poles are rapidly emerging 

 from that state of laziness and inactivity in which they 



