878 EUSSIA IN EUROPE. 



more than 4,000 feet, culminating with Mount Iremel, whicli is over 5,000 

 feet, thus rivalling the highest summits of the Northern Urals. Less elevated 

 are the two other chains ; that is, the central, which continues the main axis 

 of the range, and the eastern, which gradually merges with the plateaux bordering 

 on the Aral Sea. At its southern extremity the Ural system is no less than 180 

 miles wide.* 



The river Ural, whose course continues the Ural range as the official limit of 

 Europe and Asia, was formerly known as the Yayik, a name which has been 

 suppressed in consequence of its association with the insurrection of the Yayik 

 Cossacks under Pugachov. The Ural ranks with the great European rivers in 

 the length of its course, but not in the volume of its waters. Rising in the 

 Kalo-antau gorges on the Asiatic side, it receives its first tributaries from the 

 valleys sheltered from the moist winds, and the mean annual snow and rain fall of 

 its upper basin is probably nowhere as much as 16 inches, diminishing gradually 

 southwards. Much is also carried oS by evaporation, its argillaceous bed being 

 nearly everywhere over 380 feet, and in some places 580 feet wide, but nowhere deep. 

 ■Hence the commercial town of Orenburg is unable to utilise it for navigation, 

 although it here flows west and east in the most favourable direction for the transit 

 of goods between Russia and Turkestan. In its middle course it has only two 

 important tributaries, the Sakmara in the north, and the Ilak in the south. 

 Lower down it receives nothing but rivulets, and below Uralsk, where it resumes 

 its southerly course, the affluents are few and far between. Many even fail to 

 reach its bed, being absorbed in the sands, or forming stagnant pools, which are at 

 times displaced by the pressure of the shifting dunes [barkhani) of the plains. After 

 receiving the brackish water of the Solanka, the last of its tributaries, it winds 

 sluggishly through the steppe for a distance of 300 miles, or about one-fourth of 

 its entire course, without receiving any fresh supplies. All the streams, such as 

 the Great and Little Uzen, which flow towards its valley, are absorbed before 

 reaching its bed. Hence the current diminishes southwards, and at the head of 

 the delta the volume of water is less than half of what it was at Uralsk, 



The Ural has certainly become impoverished during the last hundred years, 

 partly, doubtless, owing to the destruction of the forests along its middle course, 

 first by the Kalrauks, and then by the Kirghiz, but mainly in consequence of a 

 general diminution of the rainfall throughout the entire zone, comprising Southern 

 Russia and Turkestan. In 1769 Pallas found that it reached the Caspian through 

 nineteen mouths, and the delta had an area of over ] ,000 square miles. In 1821 

 the delta had been reduced to less than one-half, and the mouths to nine, of which 

 four were still deep enough to float small craft ; but since 1846 there have usually 

 beenbut three mouths, the other water-courses being only occasionall}'^ flushed during 



* Various elevations of the Middle and Southern Urals: — 



Middle Urals. Southern Ukats. 



Denejkin Kamen . . . 5,360 feet. Iremel ...... 5.040 feet. 



Konchatkov .... 4,795 „ Yurma 3,447 „ 



Blagodat . . . . . 1,515 „ Taganai 3,441 „ 



Pass of Yekaterinburg- . . 1,180 „ Akktûba 2,598 ,, 



