The mouth of the Volga is 982 miles distant from the source, in an air-line. The distance, including all the curves of the stream, is 2012 miles, the bendings adding 1028 miles to the direct course. By this doubling of the shortest possible distance, the area drained by it is swollen to the enormous size of 657,000 square miles. The direct course lies in a diagonal direction from northwest to southeast; but the real direction is a changing one. First, it flows a short distance from north to south, then in its middle course it has a double direction; first eastward, toward the Ural chain, then to the south, and lastly, in its lower course, to the southeast. Through this varied course it receives tributaries from very remote sources, and waters a country altogether greater than would be possible if the Volga’s course were direct from the source to the mouth. Its basin becomes so large as to embrace a fifth of Europe, and the stream becomes one of the longest and most available for navigation in the continent. The vastness of the volume of water and the wandering course have both contributed to the value of the Volga lowlands. The exact contrast to the Volga is found in the Dniester. In the Volga there is a maximum of windings; in the Dniester there is a minimum. The air-line distance of the mouth of the Dniester from the source is 408 miles; the distance, including all the bends, is 450 miles; the loss in winding is, therefore, but about 42 miles. The theoretical course of the Dniester, _i.e._ measured by an air-line, would coincide very nearly with its actual course. There cannot be, therefore, any distant springs whose waters flow into its channel; its basin is one of the most contracted in the world in consequence of its directness; and a small belt, embracing but 32,850 square miles, comprehends the entire district that it drains, freed from all those tributaries which make the Volga basin so important. The Dnieper, its eastern neighbor, is 630 miles in direct distance from the source to the mouth, but 1000 with all its windings; leaving 370 miles as the extraneous shore, which adds to the value of the basin, and contributes to the 219,000 square miles which it drains. The same contrast is seen elsewhere, though not on so extended a scale. It is to be found in the Vistula, Oder, Elbe, Weser, Rhine, and Danube. These rivers give shape to the transition terraces between broad eastern Europe and the more contracted western portions of the continent; their dimensions are, therefore, on a less extensive scale than in the great Russian streams. Still, the differences in them are worthy of notice.