The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

271 RUSSIA IX EUROPE.Nearly all its great affluents join the Dnieper in its middle course, and at shortintervals from each other, so that their floodings are all concentrated ahout onepoint, and cause the main stream to rise suddenly. The river is still in a stateof nature, its mean breadth being from 2,000 to 3,800 feet, but in the floods itextends in many places to a distance of G miles, entirely filling the main valley,and overflowing into those of its tributaries on both banks. The danger of theseinundations is all the greater since the disappearance of the forests has rendered thedischarge more irregular than formerly, and the rising more sudden and extensive.The low-lying districts thus periodically flooded are extremely fertile, which ismainly due to the particles of " black earth " washed down from the upperFig. 131.High Banks or the Dnieper, above Cherkasi.Scale 1 : 550,000.[ ofPZefGregions. With the soil the very timber of the north is brought down, and manytracts along the Dnieper banks are now covered with birch forests reaching nearlyto the liman district. But most of these lands, which might support a vastpopulation, produce nothing but coarse hay and reeds.The third river in Europe for the volume of its waters, and forming the mainartery of a region inhabited by 12,000,000 people, the Dnieper might also besupposed to be one of the most important for its navigation. It traverses successivelyseveral distinct zones of cultivation, climate, and culture, passing from theforest region to that of the "black lands," and thence to the arid steppes. Since