MODERN RAVINES OR AVRACHS. 
571 
these fissures have been described by Mr. Strangways, and the region in which 
he notices them near Jurievetz on the Volga, and Nijni Novogorod, is that where 
they appeared to us also most remarkable. These “ avrachs” or “ baltas” of the 
Russians are common to every part of the country, where high plateaux, essentially 
composed of soft materials, are flanked by valleys at some depth below them. The 
rapidity with which they are widened after the ground has once begun to yawn, is 
quite surprising to those who have been accustomed only to survey the trodden 
tracts of Europe, and other parts of the world. 
Central Russia, indeed, has been shown to consist, to a very great extent, of a 
series of undulations, composed of incoherent materials. In other words, it is a 
country so devoid of a hard framework, that the vast increment of clay, sand, or 
mud, which occupies her surface, is easily denuded, when an adequate cause is 
brought into play. The opening or Assuring of these masses, then, is first due to 
an extreme climate, which subjects the surface to intense and long droughts, alter- 
nating with heavy debacles, arising from the melting of thick coverings of snow 
and ice. During the hot and parching summers the argillaceous grounds necessa- 
rily split into rents, and wherever these occur, they are necessarily filled in winter 
with great accumulations of snow and ice. The thaw of the succeeding spring 
melting these bodies, the smallest crack of the previous year is enlarged into a 
gulley, which, widening as it approaches the steep sides of the hill, becomes, in 
a few seasons, a broad and deep ravine, through which the melted snow, mud, 
sand and clay, with occasional boulders and blocks, are transported into the ad- 
jacent river. It is the conjunction, therefore, of the very incoherent nature of 
the upper deposits of Russia with the extremes of her climate, that explains the 
formation and rapid extension of her innumerable ravines. It would, indeed, be 
a curious problem to ascertain, to what extent these ravines encroach annually 
upon the best arable and pasture grounds of the empire (even in the suburbs of 
important towns), and in what progression this waste takes place. This might be 
approximately ascertained, by measuring the rapidly increasing delta in the Cas- 
pian near Astrakhan, at the mouth of the Volga, and the very perceptible silting 
up of the Sea of Azof by the contents of the river Don. In no instance have we 
seen any means adopted to check this continual wear and tear, by which millions 
of tons of the richest soils are annually destroyed, and carried away by the great 
rivers, though by levelling their sides and filling up the chasms in their early state, 
much of the evil might be averted. We may here also mention, that it is owing 
