366 



RUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



equal volume, and historically even more important than the main stream. The 

 Oka, which long served as the frontier between Tatar and Muscovite, rises in the 

 region of the " black lands," and throughout a course of 900 miles waters the 

 most fertile plains of Great Russia, bringing to the Nijni fair the produce of Orol, 

 Kaluga, Tula, Eiazan, Tambov, Vladimir, and Moscow. Over 1,440 yards broad, 

 it seems like an arm of the sea at its confluence with the Volga. East of this 

 point the main artery is swollen by other tributaries, which, though as large as 

 the Seine, seem insignificant compared with the mighty Kama, joining it below 

 Kazan from the Urals, and draining an area at least equal in extent to the Avhole 

 of France. Judging from the direction of its course, the Kama seems to be the 

 main stream, for below the junction the united rivers continue the southerly and 

 south-westerly course of the Kama, whose clear waters flow for some distance 

 before intermingling with the grey stream of the Volga. Below Simbirsk the 



Fi<r 1^3. — TuFMTîLixo Forests near Nijni-î^ovgorod. 



Floating Soil. 



Ooze with viscous 

 PlautB and AVater. 



Sand and Clay. 



tributaries are few and unimportant, and as the rainfall is here also slight, and the 

 evaporation considerable, the mean discharge is probably as great at this place as 

 at the delta. 



Below the Kama junction there formerly existed a vast lacustrine basin, which 

 has been gradually filled in by the alluvia of both streams. Here is the natural 

 limit of the peat region, and hei'e begins, on the right bank, that of the steppes. 

 As we proceed southwards the atmosphere becomes less humid, the ground firmer, 

 and below Simbirsk we no longer meet those mossy and wooded quagmires bound 

 together by the tangled roots of trees, resembling matted cordage. But even in 

 the boggy districts those floating forests are slowly disappearing as the land is 

 brought more and more under cultivation. 



Below the dried-up Simbirsk Lake the stream is deflected by an impassable 

 limestone barrier eastAvai-ds to Samara, where it escapes through a breach and 

 reverses its course along the southern escarpment of the hills, thus forming a long 



