August, 1902.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



175 



material, which only accumulates as a true deposit when 

 the <;lacier vanishes away. In this sense it differs con- 

 siderably from the visible and continuous sheet of moraine- 

 matter which disfigures and conceals the surface of so 

 many glaciers. In this sense also, the material of the 

 Prussian plain may be spoken of as largely originating in 

 the moraine pri'Jonde. 



And what is this plain to-day, stretching far into Russia 

 on the east, but a monstrous development of the drift- 

 covered plain of Ireland? The features seen between 

 Dublin and Galway are here spread out over 500 miles ; and 

 that distance only brings us to the further frontier of 

 Ostpreussen. By that time we shall probably have had 

 enough of plains. Yet the surface is not truly level, for 

 rounded hills of loam and sand, stuck full of the character- 

 istic pebbles, occasionally border the road, or are climbed 

 by it between one tract and another. In time we cross the 

 Oder, in its alluvial meadows, between Stettin and Dainm, 

 whose harliours are forty miles from open water on this 

 dreary and eucuml)ered coast. In eastern Pomerania the 

 monotonous poverty of the landscape becomes more intense. 

 The forests form the one ennobling feature. Mile after 

 mile of tall slim fir-trees, covering the sandy soil, rising in 

 folds with the undulations of the surface, cutting off the 

 grey-green Baltic on our left and the grey-green lands 

 upon our right, and hiding us, as it were, in ancient 

 Europe, far from the stir of modern times. The bitter 

 wind, which blows even in September, sways the crests of 

 the trees and crashes the stems against one another. The 

 noise overhead, as we rest in the half-darkness, is in strange 

 contrast with the quiet of these forest-depths. Here and 

 there a soft by-road goes off to some well-hidden hamlet ; 

 it is the sort of track that in Poland they call a pohka 

 droija, the typical road of a primitive and undeveloped land. 



And so again into the open, to meet the blast that bears 

 with it rain-storms and sudden hail. In the sun-gleam 

 that follows, a cold Baltic suu-gleam, the fields show their 

 patches of brown earth and yellow sand ; the ploughing, 

 on such thin soil, does not obscure the boundaries of the 

 underlying drifts. The precious crystalline boulders from 

 Sweden, the handsomest things in the great plain, are 

 removed by the labourers and placed conveniently against 

 the highway. When the Pomeranian highland is reached, 

 where the ground rises at last some 6U0 feet above the 

 sea, lakes become more numerous, and one may climb for 

 fifteen miles ;iud descend for another fifteen, while the 

 villages adopt almost a chalet style of architecture. 



We had thought of the Vistula as the frontier of 

 German preponderance; but both sides prove that the 

 racial lines are as uncertain as the stream itself between 

 its banks of yellow earth. The great waterway is, how- 

 ever, a feature in itself, with cUffs above it in jilaces 

 200 feet in height, and the antique towers of Mewe 

 or Marienwerder looking out upon the stream. The 

 course of the river from near Bromberg to the Baltic is, 

 geologically speaking, modern. All across the plain, the 

 great rivers receive their longest tributaries from the east.* 

 These, such as the Spree and the Warthe, run so far back 

 from the main streams that it seems as if a trifling further 

 extension would unite them in one great westward-flowiug 

 river, leaving the lower Vistula and Oder " beheaded " 

 and diminished. Yet the course of events has been in 

 reality in the opposite direction. The tracing out of the 

 alluvial deposits in old valleys across the plain shows th.at 

 the great east-and-west river has already existed, and that 

 the lower courses of the Vistula and Odei- result from the 

 flowing out north at a later period of water that once 



• Compare Kirchhoff, in Jlill's " International Geography " (1S99), 

 p. 270. 



found its way into the Elbe. ' The Bug, rising in eastern 

 Galicia, joins the Vistula near Warsaw ; its waters 

 formerly, as now, followed the present valley of the 

 Vistula as far as Thorn and Fordou, but thence ran 

 on west along the course of the present Netze and Warthe 

 to the valley of the Oder ; thence, still westward, to the 

 Elbe near Havelberg in western Brandenburg, and so away 

 to the North Sea. After a time, the water escaped north 

 at a point in Brandenburg, and the lower Oder was 

 formed, flowing to the Baltic ; still later, a narrow breach 

 was opened near Fordon in Westpreussen, and the lower 

 Vistula drew off the more eastern part of the water, the 

 former link with the Oder becoming converted into the 

 present Netze. Thus it happens that only diminished 

 streams occupy the ancient valley, while the main flow 

 from the northern Hanks of the Karpathians is poured by 

 Fordon, Neuenburg, and Mew^e into the Gulf of Danzig 

 Whatever valley previously existed here has been deepened 

 by the greater flow turned into it, and the notches cut liy 

 old tributaries can be seen, left behind, as it were, high 

 upon the yellow cliff. 



This diversion of the streams northward, so noticeable 

 on any map of Prussia, has been attributed to local 

 alterations iu the tilt of the land, such as are known to 

 have gone on even since the deposition of the drift. A 

 more general cause has been sought in the retreat of the 

 dominant ice-sheet towards the Baltic basin ; until this 

 melted away, the rivers could only run east and west along 

 its front. It is conceivable that the retreat was assisted 

 by a downward movement of the Baltic area, and the 

 formation of a slope on which new streams ran towards 

 the ice-front and not away from it. The present river- 

 courses, whatever their origin, clearly arise from the 

 intersection of two separate systems. 



At present, modern alluvium is spreading across the 

 wide valley of the Vistula. Thus the old red fortress of 

 Marienwerder, planted on the eastern bank, is two-and-a- 

 half miles from its ferry ; and when we cross the river, 

 another level mile brings us to the western bank. At 

 Neuenburg, the town rises directly from the stream ; but 

 five miles of alluvium must be traversed before we reach 

 the correspondirg cliff upon the east. These figures 

 convey some idea of the scale of the valley, which forms the 

 one great scenic feature of the Slavonic lands of Prussia. 



We climb to Marienwerder, and again go eastward. A 

 certain infatuation, such as Napoleon felt in the dreary 

 days of 1806, draws one to the Russian cordon. Enormous 

 ploughed lands, with occasional woods, and lakelets 

 bounded bv heaps of glacial drift, are succeeded near Lbbau 

 l>y quite a highland country, in places 800 feet above 

 the sea. Long eskers, the gravel ridges that represent the 

 channels of sub-glacial streams, cross the route, and again 

 remind us of the inland ice. Their association with 

 lakes recalls on a large scale the desolate moorland of 

 Tyrone. Beside the road, boulders four or five feet long 

 are piled up in cairns, while smaller ones peep out every- 

 where on the surface of the fields. 



At length, in a purely Polish country, we reach the 

 cordon and the black and white Russian frontier posts. 

 For eight miles we ride down the border, on a true polsha 

 droga, through Bialutten, Dzwierzna, and Sczepka, often 

 between the stems of the fir-trees rather than on the deeply 

 grooved and sandy road. Over there, a stone's-throw 

 on our left, the Cossack lancers, in their white shirts and 

 caps, ride to and fro, and keep that arbitrarj- and unfenced 

 line, which marks the edge of Europe. And here are 

 lUowo and the railway-station ; the gate of another Poland 

 opens, and in four hours we shall be in AVarsaw. 



» WahnschafEe, op. cit., pp. 175-191, and PI. 2, p. 91. 



