564 
TCHORNOZEM OR BLACK EARTH OF RUSSIA. 
earth was originally marine silt, which, like the tchornozem of Russia, had been 
transported beyond the reach of coarser detrital influences 1 . 
The absence of any marine shells in this fine Russian sediment is, it is true, a 
negative fact, which, if unaccompanied by explanation, might indispose some 
persons to admit our hypothesis. We must, however, bear in mind that, after their 
emersion, the low central parts of this empire, if but slowly elevated, may have 
long continued in an intermediate state of mire with little egress for water ; so that 
the remains of delicate testacea and sea-weeds (if they formerly existed) may have 
been entirely decomposed by the alternations of aqueous and atmospheric agency. 
However this may have been, we cannot look at the very great uniformity of its 
composition over such vast tracts, and its independence of existing drainage, 
without rejecting any theory which would explain the production of the tchornozem 
by subaerial and existing causes only, and we therefore refer its origin to aqueous 
deposit, and the subsequent modifications which the surface underwent, when passing 
into a terrestrial condition, long anterior to its occupation by the human race 2 . 
1 In aspect, however, as well as in composition, the specimens of “ Regur” which we have seen, differ 
essentially from the tchornozem in not being, by any means, so black, in containing much coarser grains 
of sand (even pebbles), and also calcareous (tufaccous) concretions, which are attributed by Captain New- 
bold to springs rising from the subjacent rocks. 
2 We are not prepared to say to what extent the productive thick humus of the southern steppes and 
of Wallachia and Moldavia may be referred to the same period of accumulation as the tchornozem, but in 
a calculation of the productiveness of the South Russian soil, M. Ritter evidently groups all these tracts 
with the black earth. If the rich southern soil be analogous to the black earth, we of course entirely 
dissent from M. Huot, who states that its formation commenced at the epoch when the first human so- 
cieties were established, and has been continually increasing, and further, that it contains intact vegetable 
matter. This description will in no respect answer to that of the tchornozem, in which neither Pallas, nor 
Strangways, nor ourselves have been able to trace any vegetable fibre, and which, for all the reasons above 
adduced, could not have been formed in the present period. (See DemidofF s Voyage dans la Russie Mer., 
vol. ii. p. 460 et seq .) 
Nor can we agree with M. Huot, that the total absence of trees in southern Russia and the steppes is 
due to any political causes, or to the wood-destroying habits of the nomadic tribes, who have for so many 
ages occupied those regions. The absence of trees over certain flat and steppe-like regions of Asia is 
universal, whilst similar tracts in northern climes are specially covered with forests. This distribution 
results from general conditions of climate ; and the want of dew , to which the inhabitants of South 
Russia attribute the want of wood, seems to us to be a much better reason than that of M. Huot. At all 
events we utterly disbelieve in the former existence of forests which have been destroyed (for Herodotus 
tells us that large tracts of the Scythians were entirely bare of wood), and we are firmly persuaded, that 
by no efforts could any government produce forests in those districts, except in certain rocky and moist 
spots. 
