Reviews — Ansted's Physical Geography. 269 



One may travel for hundreds of miles over the level surface of the ground,— over 

 the turf in spring, through the thick dust in summer, and over the snow in winter — 

 without seeing a single object rising above the general surface of the plain. The 

 post-houses, at equal and distant intervals, ara the only signs of humanity and civil- 

 ization ; and the cry of the bustard is one of the few sounds that break the terrible 

 monotony and stillness. The dead -level of thin pasture, even if luxuriant, soon 

 fatigues the eye ; and when the horses and cattle are away there is absolutely nothing 

 for the eye to rest upon. The travelling across the steppes, conducted with great 

 rapidity, in a kind of light cart, is thus not so difficult as it is tiresome ; but it is 

 only safe in summer : and when the snows cover the ground, not only does it become 

 dangei'ous, from the wolves who take refuge in the hollows, but almost impossible, 

 owing to the absence of land-marks. It is understood that an entire corps d'armee 

 was lost in the steppes, between the Dnieper and the Don, while attempting to rein- 

 force the Russian army in the Crimea, during the war with England and Prance. 



Throughout the southern part of the steppes, and in much of the country to the 

 east, there is either a thin soil or no soil at all. This condition, however gives place 

 in the interior to a remarkable and extremely black soil, of extraordinary richness, 

 capable of yielding inexhaustible supplies of wheat without any artificial treatment, 

 or any agriculture except of the rudest kind. 



These parts of the steppes now supply enormous quantities of corn to the great 

 markets of the world, and when opened, as they soon will be, much more completely 

 by railroads and steam navigation on the great rivers, it is certain that both Russia 

 and the rest of Europe will be great gainers. A wide range of the plains is, however, 

 hopelessly barren, and all of them depend much on the occasional rains ; when these 

 fail the heat is excessive, and the sun rises and sets lik^ a globe of fire, while during 

 the day a thick mist covers the earth. The drought soon becomes excessive ; the 

 small supplies of water found at other seasons in the hollows fail altogether ; the air 

 is filled with dust and impalpable powder, and the cattle and horses perish by 

 thousands. 



In the winter the case is equally bad : fearful storms often sweep over the desolate 

 plains : the dry snow is driven by the gales with a violence which neither man nor 

 animal can resist ; but the sky remains bright, and the sun shines cold and clear in 

 the blue vault of heaven. These storms are especially frequent in the vast Aralo- 

 Caspian plain, which is depressed below the general level of the sea, and which is to 

 a great extent an ocean of shifting sand." 



Oceans, rivers, lakes, ice, and springs, receive a somewliat more 

 extended notice in part the third, under the heading Water. The 

 existence of organic life at the greatest ocean depths is shown from 

 the deposits there consisting largely of foraminifers which have 

 been found half-digested in the stomachs of living star-fishes brought 

 up from a depth of nearly two miles in the mid- Atlantic. The fact 

 of many lakes in both the old and new world having a depth 

 reaching below sea-level is stated; but slight allusion is made to 

 any coimexion between the frequency of lakes and a former glacial 

 period ; the viscous theoiy of ice is not advocated, its progressive 

 movements being attributed to regelation ; and thermal springs are 

 regarded as a kind of aqueous volcanos. 



The fourth division of the book is headed Air, and is eminently 

 meteorological, treating of the atmosphere, winds, dew, and climate ; 

 storms, trade-winds, cyclones, clouds, rain and rain-fall, magnetic 

 storms, etc. 



Among many points of interest the difficulty of accounting for 

 why the heavier atoms of water in the form of clouds, which lose 

 their power of wetting at certain altitudes, remain " permanently in 

 contact with the lighter atoms of oxygen and nitrogen of the air " is 

 noticed, and it is not thought necessary to assume that the water is 

 present in any other than its most ordinary condition. 



