LITHUANIA. 



259 



lines of erratic boulders. A much larger area is covered by the marshes, especially 

 ill Grodno, though the inhabitants are constantly reclaiming the land for cultiva- 

 tion. The old forests, formerly of vast extent, have also largely disappeared, and 

 the solitary woodmen's huts are now mostly represented by villages, and even 

 towns surrounded for miles by cleared lands. 



There still, however, remains the vast forest of the Bela-Veja, or "White 

 Tower," covering nearly the whole of the plateau comprised between the sources 

 of the Narev and the course of the Bag north of Brost-Litovskiy, with a total 

 area of 850 square miles. But parts of this region, known as Belo-Vejskaya 

 Puchtcha, consist, especially in the south and south-west, of moorlands varied with 



Fig. 122. — LakiiS and Swamps in the Guveknment of Vitebsk. 

 Scale 1 : 170,000. 





'T^ 





"27"|20' 



E of Or 



2 Miles. 



strips of heath, stunted pine groves, and fields of rye. Northwards, however, the 

 forest proper is continued by other woodlands almost to the Niémen. The mean 

 elevation of this wooded plateau is about 600 feet. It differs in the great variety 

 of its vegetation from the interminable and monotonous pine, fir, or birch forests of 

 Northern and Central Eussia. By 1830 Eichwald had already here collected 

 1,205 species, and although the pine prevails, the fir, oak, birch, beech, maple, 

 alder, and lime everywhere abound, and a sort of secondary forest is formed by an 

 undergrowth of such deciduous plants as the willow, hazel, wild vine, and elder, 

 while beneath the lofty avenues of conifers the ground is carpeted with mosses, 

 lichens, and the wild strawberry. 



In these virgin woodlands still roam herds of bisons almost in a wild state, 



