RUSSIA IN EUROPE 
5 
eling through the land of the Cossacks; men and -women at 
every station have Asiatic faces, and wear generally a goatskin 
coat, with the fur inside, fastened by a girdle. No trace of cul- 
tivation, except on the streams which we cross from time to 
time. These streams flow in low, narrow valleys; the road 
descends two or three hundred feet into the valleys by curves, 
and then ascends to the plain to save grading, and this affords 
the only variation in tlie scenery.” 
In this great plain there are five distinct zones of land : The 
frozen, the forest, the black, the agricultural, and the barren 
steppes. The black zone, near the center, is the most fertile and 
thickly inhabited. To the north the country grows gradually 
less fertile, passing through the forest zone to the Arctic zone, 
entirel}’- destitute of vegetation. To the south of the black zone 
the country likewise grows less and less fertile, passing through 
the agricultural zone to the dry and sandy steppes, entirely des- 
titute of vegetation. 
From 200 to 300 miles in width, the black zone extends from 
Austria, a little north of east, across Russia, over the Ural 
mountains, far into Siberia. It resembles our ])rairies ; has a 
rich, l)lack soil of great depth, unsurpassed in fertility. Reclus 
sa,ys that “ all traces of glaciers disappear where the black lands 
begin and the forests end, while the contrast between the flora 
of the two regions is complete.” American geologists believe 
that the glaciers extended over the whole of Russia to the Black 
sea, and that the great level plain which constitutes Russia is 
due to aqueo-glacial action. 
In the northern part of the black zone are occasional groves of 
oak and birch ; traveling north these are succeeded by forests 
of hardwood, with occasional evergreens. Gradually the hard- 
wood disappears ; then we enter the forest zone, j)ines and 
evergreens. About one-third of Russia is forest. In this region 
are immense districts, where the onlv roads are rivers flowinsr 
througli interminable walls. Then comes a land of rocks, lakes, 
and swam])s,with isolated and snowy masses rising above the 
forests and peat-l)eds. This is the Arctic zone, and here is 
Finland, a region of lakes, over eleven hundred in one province ; 
the great forests of pine become small evergreens, reaching a 
height of 25 feet in 100 years, gaining their maturity in 300 years. 
Gradually they become yet smaller and are of slower growth. 
The giant of these forests is the willow, which sometimes reaches 
