ARCTIC RUSSIA. 



343 



stretcTiing southwards, and nowhere attaining an elevation of more than 300 feet. 

 But the schists are separated from the southern masses hy intervening Jurassic 

 formations, said to contain naphtha springs, besides beds of pyrites and copper. 

 Kanin was formerly an island, and the rivers Chiya, flowing west to the Gulf of 

 Mezen, and Cheshcha, flowing east to Cheskaya Bay, both had their source, a 

 hundred years ago, in the same lake, so that boats could easily cross from shore 

 to shore. The lake is now a mere swamp, and all through navigation has ceased, a 

 change doubtless due to the general upheaval going on all along the north coast of 

 Russia. The old strait was first 



changed into a lake with a double Fi>. 181- Kanin Peninsula. 



outlet, and this lake was then 

 transformed to a swamp between 

 two rivers. 



Besides the Timan range the 

 province of Archangel is crossed 

 by a few low ridges connected 

 with the Ural system, but nowhere 

 rising above 600 feet, except in 

 the immediate vicinity of the 

 main chain. Nor is the contrast 

 between the hills and the lowlands 

 very marked. For over half the 

 year hills, plains, lakes, marshes, 

 are shrouded in a uniform mantle 

 of snow, while the brief summer 

 vegetation is everywhere of the 

 same uniform character. Nearly 

 all the land as far as the sixty- 

 sixth parallel is still covered with 

 forests, whose relative value is 

 yearly increased according as the 

 central regions become more and 

 more disaflbrested. Fifteen-six- 

 teenths of the province of Vologda 

 are under timber, mainly conifers 



and birch, and this proportion is continued in the southern districts of Archangel. 

 All the heights are wooded, and the Russian word gora, like the Ziryanian jxinua, 

 means " hill " or " wood " indifl'erently, as in South America do the terras monte or 

 iiwnfaTia, and Wahl in many parts of Germany. But farther north trees are replaced 

 by shrubs, and these by creeping plants, whose scanty foliage seeks a shelter 

 beneath the tufts of red ochre or pale white mosses. Here are the vast solitudes 

 known by the Ziryanian term tundra, or rather tnindra — that is, " treeless land " — 

 resembling those of North Siberia, though with a mean temperature several degrees 

 higher. Even in Lapland there are no perennial frozen masses at the bottom of 



Over 

 28 Fathoms. 



i 25 Miles. 



