The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

27KPITSSIA IN EUROPE.side of the limun. The sandy alluvia brought down with its current are preventedfrom reaching the sea by the bar at its mouth, which gives access only to lightcraft. All goods from the interior have to be sent overland to Odessa.Amongst the fishes of the Dniester, Dnieper, and Danube there are severalforming quite distinct species. To account for their origin Kessler has supposedthat the Balkans -were formerly connected with the mountains of the Crimea, thusenclosing southwards a great basin of fresh water fed by the rivers of SouthRussia. Of these species two only are found elsewhere, the Aspro vulgaris in theRhone, and the Acerina Rossica in the Don.The Dniester, Dug, and Dnieper are now the only navigable streams of SouthRussia between the Danube and the Don. But in the time of Herodotus thePig. 135.— Padi, or "Hollows," in the Steppe.Scale 1 : 300,000.Farmsteads._ 5 Miles.land, although destitute of timber, seems to have been well watered by largerivers, " scarcely less numerous than the canals in Egypt." At present thesouthern steppes are dried up, and even including the limans on the coast, nolonger fed by running waters, there is but a very small number of coast streams.Herodotus, who visited the country, could scarcely have been mistaken as to itssalient features, besides which the traces of the old rivers spoken of by him arestill visible. Between the Danube and Dniester, and thence to the Bug, parallelriver valleys follow in quick succession, but they no longer reach the coast ; theyare either entirely or partly dried up, and their lateral gorges are flushed onlyduring the freshets.Local tradition everywhere tells of the disappearance of running waters.