The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

GEOLOGICAL FEATURES. 185that have been sunk in the surface strata. Instead of folding, tilting, andoverlapping diversely, and thus producing all the varieties of soil reflected in thevegetable contrasts of the surface, the superimposed rocks maintain their regularparallelisms for vast spaces, their disintegration everywhere supplying the samesoil, overgrown by the same species of plants. The granitic and gneiss formationsof Scandinavia, Finland, and the region between the White Sea and the Nevabasin are succeeded by palaeozoic and carboniferous rocks stretching south andFig. 90.— EW IS THE Dnieper Steppes.east to the very heart of Central Asia. Then come the new red sandstones,comprising those Permian formations which take their name from the vastgovernment of Perm, and which extend along the base of the Ural, between theCaspian steppes and the shores of the Frozen Ocean. Jurassic strata skirt thePermian southwards, overlapping them in the centre, thus forming an irregulartriangle tapering slowly from the northern tundras to the banks of the Volga.Farther south, chalk, tertiary, and recent formations are disposed round a granitic