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and as the Danube does, for example, yet that is on
account of the flatness of the country and the scantiness
of the rainfall. Just as whole streams in Southern
Russia are swallowed up by the earth and evaporated as they
flow, so the immense flood of the Volga, pouring into the
basin of the Caspian Sea, has not sufficed in a hundred
years to raise the water level.
The great steppes, which have been compared to the
ocean, have none of the ever varying aspects of the sea.
Unchanging uniformity is their characteristic. The
greatest river, which is as broad as a sound, and in
comparison with which the Rhine is short, lacks the
impetuosity and turmoil of less imposing rivers. A certain
mighty sluggishness is peculiar to its flow. This
sluggishness as well as this uniformity is Russian.
In this empire, where everything is immense, there is
nothing in the natural conditions which is mild or
temperate. This great tract of land is like a body without
limbs. It has no indentations of any consequence; is
not cut up into half-island formations or divided into
islands, like the whole of Northern, Western, and
Southern Europe. It has a continental climate: that is, long,
severe winters and burning summers. The ocean, which
always tempers the cold and heat, is remote; and the
influence of the Gulf Stream, always softening, is not felt
here.
Just as this immense continent has no indentations,
so is its uniformity unbroken by either mountains or
valleys. This land of forests, black mould, and steppes
is one great plain. This is the reason why the cold
blasts from the Arctic Ocean sweep down over the whole
empire without meeting any obstruction, and why the
moisture is wanting which the Atlantic Ocean and the
Baltic and Mediterranean Seas give to Europe. With
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