348 EUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



when the ice from the interior accumulates on the banks, carrying away huge 

 masses of rock, and often piling up the débris along the shore. The river is 

 generally ice-bound for 191 days, from about October 23rd to May 2nd; yet it 

 abounds in fish, including one species, the navaga, akin to the cod, hitherto found 

 nowhere else. The sturgeon made its appearance in the Archangel waters for the 

 first time in 1865, thanks doubtless to the Catherine Canal, for some time connect- 

 ing the Kama- Volga and Dvina systems. 



Althouo-h a small stream compared with the Dvina, the Mezen is nevertheless 

 equal to the Seine in the volume of its waters and the extent of its drainage. 

 It is even broader than the French river, being nearly three-quarters of a 

 mile wide above its sand-blocked estuary, which, like that of the Seine, is noted 

 for the abnormal character of its tides. The flow lasts generally four hours only, 

 the ebb eight, but the former is so rapid that vessels moored in the roads often 

 threaten to drag their anchors. 



The Petchora, the greatest river of the eastern tundra, is in no respect inferior 

 to the Dvina, and even drains a wider area, viz. 162,000 square miles. It flows first 

 north along the foot of the western spurs of the Urals, at the outlet of every valley 

 receiving fresh tributaries, amongst which is the Shchugor, rising in the snows of 

 Mount Tell-Pos-Is, and famous for the falls in its upper valley, and for the so-called 

 " Iron Gates," where it flows between rocks of a dazzling white colour, and cut into 

 enormous columns by vertical fissures. After receiving the Ussa, also from the 

 Urals, the Petchora bends westwards along the depression stretching a little 

 south of the arctic circle from the Urals to the Gulf of Mezen ; it then turns 

 abruptly northwards at Ust-Tzilma, discharging into the Frozen Ocean through 

 a delta about 120 miles long, where the channels wind in a vast network round 

 sands, islets, and sand-banks, which shift and change their form with every thaw. 

 A bar at the entrance prevents the access of vessels drawing 12 feet. Although 

 the delta is free of ice on an average for 127 days only, from May 25th to 

 October 1st, yet a surprising traffic in timber, cereals, and peltry is carried 

 on in a river which is, moreover, obstructed by rapids in a part of its course. The 

 sparse Russian, Ziryanian, and Samoyed jjopulation is entirely centred in hamlets 

 and small villages occvirring at wide intervals alongs its banks. The domains of 

 the various fishing associations occupy severally many thousand square miles in 

 its basin and on the arctic islands, and the Russians associated in the white 

 whale fishery set aside a tenth of their captures for St. Nicholas of Pustozersk to 

 insure the success of their undertaking. 



The "VYhite Sea. 



The sea washing the shores of the province of Archangel penetrates far inland 

 through numerous bays, inlets, and even gulfs, narrowing at their entrance 

 between lofty headlands, and generally shut off from the sea by shoals and islands, 

 the remains of ancient lidi, like those of the Adriatic. In the case of the White 

 Sea the ancient shore is still represented by the island of Morkhovetz, besides 



