342 



EUSSIA IN EUROPE. 



continued eastwards into Russian territory by deeply furrowed plateaux, wdth hero 

 and there a few eminences over 1,550 feet high. The small range terminating 

 north of the Gulf of Kandalaksha, at the western extremity of the White Sea, has 

 some peaks said to rise 3,000 feet, but in the east crests of 350 feet are rarely met. 

 The surface is almost everywhere covered with a vast peat bed, filling up all the 

 irregularities of the ground, except along the frontier, where the peat-clad granite 



is intersected by deep ravines filled 



Fig. 180. 



-The Isthmus of Kandalaksha. 

 Scale 1 : 2,525,000. 



EorP 



with perpetual snow. 



East of the river Mezen a range of 

 hills, rooted southwards in the paryna, 

 or wooded plateau, about the sources of 

 the Dvina, Petchora, and Kama, runs in 

 a north-westerly direction, broken here 

 and there by gaps, through which 

 winding streams flow west to the Mezen, 

 east to the Petchora. This ridge, some- 

 times called the Timan range, has in 

 some places an elevation of from 65 

 to 820 feet, one crest in the north 

 rising apparently 890 feet above the 

 sea. But here the chain, already inter- 

 sected by numerous rivers, spreads out 

 like a fan, terminating on the Arctic 

 Ocean in a number of parallel penin- 

 sulas, one of which, the Svatoï Nos, 

 projects some 18 miles beyond the 

 normal coast-line. The large island of 

 Kolguyev, separated from the main- 

 land by a strait 60 miles wide, may be 

 regarded as a continuation of the 

 Timan range, for the intervening 

 waters are only 130 feet deep. Kol- 

 guyev, with an estimated area of 1,350 

 square miles, is surrounded by shallows 

 and of difficult access, but is yearly 

 visited by some sixty or eighty hunters 

 in search of the seal, white bear, wild swan, duck, blue fox, and reindeer. All 

 attempts at permanent colonisation have hitherto ended in disaster. In 1767 

 seventy Haskolniks took refuge hero from religious persecution, but all soon 

 perished of scurvy. 



The Kanin peninsula itself may perhaps be nothing more than a western con- 

 tinuation of a secondary spur of the Timan range. Its northern section between 

 Capes Mikulkin and Kanin, presenting the appearance of a hammer, is occupied 

 by a plateau of crystalline schists, corresponding exactly with a rocky belt 



54°- EofG 



25 Miles. 



