280 



RUSSIA IN EUROPE. 



In the coast steppes permanent wells and springs are represented only by 

 intermittent meres or pools flooded during the rains, and overgrown with sedge 

 and reeds. In other low-lying grounds called padi, though there is no permanent 

 supply, there is moisture enough to support a course vegetation, while wells sunk 

 50 or 60 feet afford a brackish water barely suitable for cattle. Owing to 

 this scarcity of water, most of the villages and farmsteads stretch for miles in 

 narrow belts along the line of pools, wells, and intermittent streams. During 

 the heavy rains the river beds are again flooded, often threatening destruction to 



the hamlets built in the ravines, and 



Fig. 138. 



-Granite Eavines "West of the Dniepeu. 

 Scale 1 : 510,000. 



I if'P 



yearly carrying down to the coast 

 limans vast quantities of rich soil, 

 whereby the land becomes more and 

 more denuded. Sudden downpours 

 have in a single hour utterly ruined 

 productive land for hundreds of 

 yards, and the erosive action of the 

 water has furrowed deep ravines 

 even in the granitic region west of 

 the Dnieper. 



Of the numerous limans fed by 

 the inland streams two only between 

 the Dniester and Danube have pre- 

 served their permanent communica- 

 tions with the sea — that of Berezan, 

 a little west of Ochakov, and that 

 of the Dniester. The south-west 

 coast, skirting the now land-locked 

 salt lakes of Burnas, Alibey, Shaganî, 

 Kunduk, is broken at one point only, 

 and even this inlet shifts with the 

 rains and storms. The shoals and 

 siltings now blocking the limans 

 have by some been attributed to a 

 general upheaval of the coast, a 

 theory it would be useless to discuss 

 in the absence of systematic observa- 

 tions along the seaboard. After long 

 droughts the surface of the limans is lower than that of the Eiixine ; in spring 

 their level is raised and their saline character diminished by the influx of fresh 

 water. But they still in many respects resemble the sea from which they have 

 but recently been cut oif. That of Kunduk yields a considerable quantity of salt, 

 and in 1826 as much as 96,000 tons was extracted from the three largest 

 Bessarabian lagoons. But others farther west have become quite fresh, having 

 been separated from the sea for thousands of years. Some are deep enougli to 





, 5 Miles. 



