426 



RUSSIA IN EUEOPE. 



which at the time of Ptolemy was already at some distance from the coast, has 

 ceased to exist. But the architectural remains and inscriptions discovered by 

 Leontiyev between Siniavka and the village of Nedvigovka show that its site was 

 about 6 miles from the old mouth of the Great Don, since changed to a dry bed 

 {mortvlij Donetz). The coarse of the main stream has been deflected southwards, 

 and here is the town of Azov, for a time the successor of Tana'is in strategic and 

 commercial importance. But where the flow is most abundant, there also the 

 alluvium encroaches most rapidly, and the delta would increase even at a still 

 more accelerated rate but for the fierce east and north-east gales prevailing for a 

 great part of the year. The sedimentary matter brought down, in the proportion 

 of about 1 to 1,200 of fluid, amounts altogether to 230,100,000 cubic feet, causing 

 a mean annual advance of nearly 22 feet. 



The Gulf of Taganrog, about 80 miles long, and forming the north-east 

 extremity of the sea, may, on the whole, be regarded as a simple continuation of the 



Don, as regards both the charac- 



Fig. 222. 



-The Donetz Coal Measures. 

 Scale 1 : 6,150,000. 



25 Miles. 



ter of its water, its current, and 

 the windings of its navigable 

 channel. This gulf, with a mean 

 depth of from 10 to 12, and 

 nowhere exceeding 24 feet, seems 

 to have diminished by nearly 2 

 feet since the first charts, dating 

 from the time of Peter the Great. 

 But a comparison of the sound- 

 ings taken at various times is 

 somewhat difficult, as the exact 

 spots where they were taken and 

 the kind of feet employed are 

 somewhat doubtful, not to men- 

 tion the state of the weather, and 

 especially the direction of the winds during the operations. Under the influence 

 of the winds the level of the sea may be temporarily raised or lowei'ed at various 

 points as much as 10, or even 16 or 17 feet. 



The mean depth of the whole sea is about 32 feet, which, for an area of 14,217 

 square miles, would give an approximate volume of 13,000 billion cubic feet, or 

 about four times that of Lake Geneva. The bed, composed, like the surrounding 

 steppes, of argillaceous sands, unbroken anywhere by a single rock, is covered, at an 

 extremely low rate of progress, with fresh strata, in which organic remains are 

 mingled with the sandy detritus of the shores. If a portion of the sedimentary 

 matter brought down by the Don were not carried out to the Euxine, the inner sea 

 would be filled up in the space of 56,500 years. 



Characteristic of its shores are the so-called kosi, narrow tongues of land 

 projecting in various directions in the form of curved hoi-ns into the sea, and 

 composed of shifting sands and fossil shells ground to dust. The north coast 



