The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

CHAPTER VII.REGION OF THE GREAT LAKES.(Ikgkia And Karelia, Novgorod axd St. Petersburg.)HE earliest Russian state known to history had arisen in the Dnieperbasin under the fostering influence of Mediterranean civilisation ;another was destined to grow up in the north-western region, facingthe Baltic Slavs, the Scandinavians, and the Germans. Kiev, rallying-pointof the southern populations, found its counterpart inNovgorod, the northern centre of trade and culture, and also lying on " the roadof the Greeks to the Varangians." The region surrounding it and stretchingnorthwards to the great lakes is not wholly included in Slavdom proper. Butalthough the Narova, Volkhov, and Neva basins form ethnically and historicallya land of transition between the Eastern Slavs and the various Finnish groups,this district possesses so much importance geographically that the Russiansnaturally sought at all times to establish commercial relations with itsinhabitants.They have at last even fixed their capital here, selecting for the purpose a sitelying almost beyond the mainland, and surrounded by non-Slav populations.Stillthe great city at the mouth of the Neva has hitherto failed to attract settlersto the neighbouring tracts, and the bleak lands encompassing it have remainedalmost uninhabited, when compared with more favoured climes.Physical Features.— Lakes Peipus and Ilmen.Including the whole of Lake Ladoga, of which a portion belongs officially toFinland, the great lacustrine region is covered with water to the extent of 16,000square miles. Unlike certain parts of Sweden and Finland, the land does not hereform a labyrinth of winding channels, its waters being concentrated in the verylargest lakes in Russia next to the Caspian. The three main bodies of fresh waterdraining through the Narova and the Neva to the Gulf of Finland are moreextensive than all the other basins of the empire taken collectively, and Ladogaalone exceeds in size and volume all the lacustrine reservoirs of Scandinavia or theAlps. This superabundance of still waters is due to the general level of the land,which is such that slightly elevated rocky ledges have sufficed to arrest the course