276 



EUSSIA IN EUROPE. 



Fig. 133. — The Dnieper Eapids. 

 Scale 1 : 410,000. 



nowliere an absolute fall, the greatest incline being only a little over 2 inches 

 in a yard. Here and there occur lateral cascades, besides back flows and secondary 

 rapids in several places. At present the pilots reckon nine main rapids altogether, 

 but these are decomposed into hundreds and t-housands of lesser falls. The river 



varies greatly in width, expanding to 

 5,676 feet at the most dangerous point, 

 and contracting to 520 feet at the " Wolf 

 Gorge," towards the end of the falls. 

 They are navigable only during the eight 

 weeks of the spring floods for small craft, 

 all those of heavy draught stopping at 

 Yekaterinoslav above, and at Alexan- 

 drovsk below them. Of the boats run- 

 ning the rapids none return, all being 

 broken up either at Kherson or else- 

 where, and sold for building purposes. 

 The attempts at canalisation carried on 

 for over a hundred years have hitherto 

 remained ineffectual, and the through 

 navigation consequently still continued 

 interrupted at this point. 



The Bug, Dniester, and other south- 

 ern rivers have also their rapids on their 

 passage through the granite zone, and 

 one of the smaller tributaries of the Bug 

 has even a clear fiiU of over 30 feet. 

 Hence the steppe rivers may be said, on 

 the whole, rather to hinder than promote 

 commercial intercourse. 



The Dnieper forms no delta beyond 

 a few straggling branches shifting with 

 the floods, and discharging into a liman, 

 or lagoon of brackish water, partly 

 separated from the Black Sea by a sand- 

 bank. A navigable channel for vessels 

 drawing 20 feet is kept open with some 

 difficulty by dint of constant dredging. 

 In summer the water of the liman, fed 

 chiefly from the sea, is too salt for use, 

 but at other times it is employed for all 

 domestic purposes, and drunk by cattle 

 with impunity. The liman also receives 

 the Bug, the Boh of the Little Eussians, a term meaning " God," and conferred 

 on it through some now forgotten superstition ; it is the Hypanis of the Greeks. 



Q Kurgans. 



5 Miles. 



