The Hon. Mr. Strangways on the Geology of Russia. 25 



both over Petersburg and Moscow^ are believed to have inspired Peter the 

 Great with the idea of ultimately fixing in this spot the capital of the empire. 

 As this design was neglected after his death, this important situation had 

 been overlooked till within a few years past, when the great bazaars and 

 buildings at Makarief having been destroyed by fire, the government deter- 

 mined on removing the seat of the fair annually held there, to Nishney Nov- 

 gorod; both on account of its situation, and from its being nearly an hundred 

 versts higher up the Volga than the original place of Makarief; while the 

 additional journey to the eastern trade is insignificant. 



In pursuance of this object, a new and magnificent bazaar is building on 

 a vast scale upon the plain, on the left bank of the Oca, opposite the town of 

 Nishney Novgorod, to which it is joined by a light and elegant bridge of 

 boats. This plain, however, being purely alluvial, or, in other words, a sort 

 of Delta formed by the Oca, is subject to regular floods from the waters of 

 both rivers. It happens, rather unfortunately, that the Volga and its affluents 

 coming from the north, while the Oca flows directly from the south, the dif- 

 ference of climate between the tracts of country that are drained by these two 

 rivers is sufficiently great to cause a difference in the time of their respective 

 inundations. Thus the ice on the upper part of the Oca, and the snows of 

 the country on its banks, break up sometimes a month earlier than those of 

 the Volga and other northern rivers; and at the time when the waters of the 

 former river would naturally subside, the flood is prolonged, increased, or 

 renewed, by the melting of the ice on the former. In addition to these 

 difficulties, the action of the two rivers on their banks presents an evil of 

 considerable magnitude. At their confluence the two rivers are describing 

 in their course the segment of a very large circle, the concavity of which is, 

 in each case, on their right bank; on which side of course the destroying 

 action takes place, whilst the left bank of each river becomes the deposit of 

 whatever they leave behind. Now the right bank of the Oca is lofty and 

 precipitous, and though it may require some ages for the action of the river 

 to do material damage to the town, yet it has barely left room for one narrow 

 street at the foot of the hill, which is regularly under water every year. But 

 the right bank of the Volga, on the other hand, is* a low and sandy accumula- 

 tion of alluvial origin, being in fact only one side of that sort of Delta which 



than the other, being overrun with wormwood. It is said to extend from the Kama to the 

 Dniestr, and in all the governments between the two rivers forms a rich and productive soil. I 

 have followed it 150 versts on each side the Volga, and found it covering red marl sand, white 

 marl, in short every kind of substratum, with one uniform coating of black mould, from afoot to 

 three feet in depth, and spread over hill and dale like a regular but unconformable bed. 

 VOL. VI. E 



