56 An Account of the Soil [pt. i 



and peat-like and the subsoil is as a rule permanently 

 frozen: it is covered only with mosses, lichens, etc. and 

 lies beyond the regions of our accustomed vegetation. 



Any other continental area can similarly be divided 

 into zones corresponding broadly with cHmatic zones. 

 In Russia, for example, white desert soils poor in organic 

 matter but often containing alkali are to be found in the 

 dry Caucasian region: further north under a limited 

 rainfall of 8-12 inches occur the brown steppe soils, 

 their deeper colour indicating their higher content of 

 organic matter; pushing still further north a belt of 

 chestnut coloured soils is found stretching away in a 

 north-easterly direction from Podolia in the south-west 

 across Little Russia to Samara and Orenburg in the east. 

 Above this again comes the famous belt of black earth, 

 the Tchernozem, the nearest European approach to the 

 black soils of the western prairies and like them devoted 

 largely to the cultivation of wheat; these are found in 

 Hungary and continue north-easterly through the west 

 Russian province Volhynia to the Government of Perm. 

 Further north these are succeeded by the Podsols, white, 

 poor, acid soils in a cold wet belt still left in forest ; and 

 finally above them come the Tundra soils, acid, treeless, 

 carrying only lichens and moss. 



Even in England indications of climatic zones can be 

 traced, although in the main our soils would fall into 

 one great group of woodland origin. But in the dry 

 eastern counties some of the heaths are distinctly steppe- 

 like in character, while in the wet high-ljdng districts of 

 the north and west occur moorland soils entirely 

 different from the clays, loams and sands of the mid- 

 lands and the south. 



