the upper Oder; the Trebnitz Heights of Silesia, and the lower plateaus
of the Fore Carpathian range, embracing Cracow as far as the hills of
Kielce and the confluence of the Sau with the Vistula. Along the southern
border of the ever-broadening plain are the plateaus of Gallicia, about
1000 feet in height, of Wolhynia and Podolia, and then less elevated
plateaus, till we reach the Dnieper.
The geological character of the border of the sea which once covered
what is now central Europe, is full of interest, because from it can be
deduced all that we can know of the history of those great changes.[6]
But we must pass over this, and only indicate the geographical
configuration of the dry basin as it exists now, and forms the great
Germanic-Sarmatia-Russian plain.
In the course of previous remarks on the lowest range of plateaus, I
have remarked, that along the south coast of the Baltic the moderately
elevated hill chains of Pomerania and of Old Prussia separated the true
coast with its lowland from the great interior plain, forming a barrier,
averaging about 300 feet in height, with here and there a form which runs
hard upon the lower limit of plateaus of the second class; at any rate, a
transition from between the lowland and the plateau.
It may here be remarked that the long, low chains, made up mainly of
loose sand and other mixed and uncombined materials, and running along
the southern border of that long, low band which skirts the Baltic, seem
to be dunes once running along the shore of a sea which has now receded
many miles to the north. In the deep channels and old inlets now dry, as
for instance in the great break through which the Vistula passes below
Thorn, only loose breccia, and no united layers of stone, appear. Yet
this does not seem to be the case everywhere, although in the Cis-Ural
and Baltic depressions dune-like ridges are to be found, some of them
rising to a height much greater than was formerly suspected. These, it
is true, are scattered, and only partially prevalent, but here and there
they ascend to an altitude of nearly 1000 feet. At the eastern end of
the great Pomeranian sea-plain west of Dantzic, and between that city
and Bütow, where the sand ridge, which formed the ancient shore-line,
runs very far to the north, there are a number of villages 400 feet above
the sea. The Lower Mountain, (Thurmberg,) 54° 13′ 29″ N. lat., rises
to a height of 1024 feet; the hill near Upper Buschkau, east of the
Thurmberg, is 814 feet high; the hill near Hulterfeld, 846 feet; and the
Höckerberg, near Schönberg, 902 feet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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