The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

CHAPTER VI.DNIEPER AND DNIESTER BASINS.(White, Little, axd New Russia.)EARLY two-thirds of the uneven plain connecting Russia withWest Europe belong to the drainage of the Black Sea. Thisregion, formerly included in the Lithuanian state, but now occupiedalmost exclusively by various branches of the Russian family,iswatered bv two main streams—the Dnieper, third in Europe forthe volume of its waters, and the Dniester, also a considerable river. Herestretch the Sarmatian lands which received a first glimmer of light from theHellenes, and which, twelve hundred years later on, witnessed the rise of the Russianpeople, and where was long fixed the centre of gravity of Eastern Slavdom.So long as the Mediterranean nations held the lead in the development of humanculture, their powerful attraction necessarily imparted the supremacy in Russiato the lands belonging to the Euxine basin. But when the Atlantic seaboardacquired the ascendancy, the civilising centre of Russia was also naturally shiftedfrom the south to the Gulf of Finland. Nevertheless the Dnieper and Dniestervalleys have never ceased to develop their industrial and commercial resources.This vast region, twice the size of France, is unbroken throughout its entireextent by a single mountain, and its plains often stretch from horizon to horizonwith the uniformity of the sea. Elevated hills are nowhere visible except about themiddle course of the two miin water arteries. North-east of the Carpathiansand of the depression where rises the Dniester, the Tarnapol and Kremenetzplateau is continued by the Ovratinsk hills, here and there presenting magnificentescarpments enframed in the foliage of the surrounding woodlands. Other lesselevated hills belonging to the same system occur north of Kamenetz-Podolskiy.These uplands, source of the farthest head-streams of the Bug, have several crestshigher than the Valdai plateau— as, for instance, that crowned by the castle ofKremenetz (1,310 feet), and that of Alexandrovsk, near IVoskurov (1,180 feet)but thej- fall gradually towards the east and south-east.The line of their crystallinecliffs may be traced throughout most of the region separating the Bug and Upper