228 EUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



streams flow either way. In Esthonia the land rises somewhat rapidly above the 

 west coast, here and there forming sandstone and old limestone cliffs, which the 

 Germans here call GUnten, no doubt the same word as the Danish Jilint. Farther 

 east a few hillocks rise above the low grounds, but there are no real hills except in 

 the north-east, where several occur 300 feet high, and one, the Emmo Màggi, or 

 ** Mother Mountain," reaches an elevation of 505 feet. The small Esthonian 

 ranges fall southwards towards the Livonian frontier, bat beyond the plains 

 watered by the Embach, or Emba, the ground rises on either side of Lake Yirz-jiirv, 

 the largest comprised entirely within the Baltic Provinces. 



East of this lake the chain of hills gradually spreads out, forming a broad 

 plateau commanded by the Munna Maggi (1,060 feet), the culminating point of 

 Livonia. This plateau, broken by deep wooded gorges, stretches south-eastwards 

 towards the "Devil's Mountain," and beyond it into the governments of Pskov 

 and Vitebsk, while a lateral spur runs south-west between the Aa and Dvina, here 

 forming the so-call(;d " "Wendish Switzerland," a charming and romantic tract, 

 studded with hundreds of lakelets. 



South of the Dvina, Kurland forms another plateau, skirting the river as far 

 as the Mitau plain, lying only a few yards above sea-level, and separated by the 

 valley of the Aa from the triangular peninsula projecting between the Gulf of 

 Riga and the Baltic. This peninsula is another " Switzerland," like that of 

 Livonia, consisting of a wooded plateau with contours broken into numerous 

 headlands, and reflecting its foliage in the waters of small lacustrine basins. It 

 terminates northwards with the so-called " Blue Mountains " and Cape Domesna3S, 

 which projects into the water like the prow of a vessel. Southwards the sandy 

 Baltic coast is mostly fringed with dunes, which formerly moved inland under 

 the west winds, but are now arrested by j)alings, or bound together by planta- 

 tions. 



The Baltic Provinces lie altogether within the zone of the Scandinavian and 

 Finnish erratic boulders. Numerous asar, like those of Sweden, occur in the 

 island of Osel and on the Esthonian plains. The strife and other marks of glacial 

 action are visible to a height of 400 feet on the hillsides, and beneath the roots 

 of the trees or in the peat beds the peasantry often find masses of granitic 

 detritus brought from Scandinavia, and mingled with a glacial clay analogous to 

 the till or boulder clay of Great Britain. The boulders are met wherever the 

 land has not yet been reclaimed, and some have even been landed on Munna Miiggi. 

 As in Finland and Sweden, the hills are in many places regularly scored from 

 north-west to south-east, the surface looking as if it had been furrowed by 

 gigantic ploughs. The parallel depressions left between the forests now form 

 lacustrine basins. 



While the land is subsiding on the East Prussian coast, it is rising in the 

 Baltic Provinces, or at least in Esthonia, having risen 2*4 inches between 1822 

 and 1837 in Pevel Harbour. Here, however, the movement is much slower than 

 on the Swedish side of the Gulf of Bothnia. 



These provinces belong to several river basins. In the north-east the 



