Ukraine, the land and its people : $b an introduction to its geographyRudnytskyi, Stepan
Science
Ukraine, the land and its people : $b an introduction to its geography
Rudnytskyi, Stepan
Ukraine; Ukrainians
The western part of the sandstone Carpathians which lies within Ukrainian territory
is called the Low Beskid. It is also known as Lemkivski Beskid because it is inhabited
by the Ukrainian mountain tribe of the Lemkes. The Low Beskyd extends from the defile
of Poprad to the valleys of the Strviazh River, the Oslava (Lupkiv pass), and the
Laboretz. It is a broad-backed but not a high mountain country. In long chains, gently
undulating mountain ridges stretch from west to east and southeast. Their slopes are
gentle; one can easily walk or even ride up, and numerous wagon-roads and highways
lead straight over the crest or even along the edge of the crest. The peaks are rounded
and of uniform height, except where an occasional gently vaulted mountain top rises
above the low-hill country. Between gently sloping ranges there extend, in a longitudinal
direction, valleys with watersheds and communicating passes. Broad, well-developed
defiles separate the range into different sections. The Galician-Hungarian dividing-ridge
has only slight gorges of genuine mountain passes.
The peaks and high passes of the Lower Beskid are insignificant. Only in the extreme
west, on the Poprad and the Torissa, do the peaks reach a height of 1000 and 1100
m.; further toward the east hardly 700 to 800 m. The important Dukla Pass is hardly
500 m. above sea-level. In the middle of the Beskid mountain country we even see a
great longish strip of lower country (“the Sianok Lowlands”) whose low hills are less
than 300 m. high.
There is a connection between the insignificant height and soft landscape forms of
the Low Beskid and the geological construction and evolution of the mountain range.
This mountain country, like the whole sandstone-region of the Carpathians, is built
up of strongly plicate [27]and compressed Flysch—a series of sandstones, slates, conglomerates, clays, etc., of the cretacian and tertiary ages. All these
species of rock occur in this region in thin layers and have little power of resistance;
everywhere the basic mountain ridge is covered with a thick coat of weathering loam;
rock piles are found very seldom. There is added the fact that all the sandstone Carpathians
of the Ukrainian territory have been evened out by the destructive action of water
and air into a more or less perfect plain. Not until the quaternary was the “obliterated”
range raised anew and transformed into a mountain district by the action of the rivers
which were cutting in again.
The Low Beskid was once covered with great, mixed forests. Now the once splendid virgin
forests are completely thinned and all the ill effects of forest destruction have
visited the poor mountain country. The fertile soil was washed away on the mountain-sides
and heaped up with rubble and mud in the valley bottoms. The tribe of the Lemkos is
therefore, perhaps, the poorest of all the Ukrainians and is compelled to seek an
existence in distant lands.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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