One of the farthest advance guards of the typical Ukrainian settlements is Isium (23,000 pop.), on the Donetz, one of the chief centers of the pottery industry. [333]Slaviansk, once Tor (20,000 pop.), on the Torez, has large salt mines and salt lakes, with bathing pavilions, which draw many guests in the summer, large salt-works and a number of mills, porcelain and metal industries. Besides, Slaviansk has important horse-markets. Nearby, on the chalk-cliffs of the Donetz, lies the famous convent of the Holy Mountains. On the eastern border of the Ukraine, on the Donetz, lies the river port of Kamenske (51,000 pop.), with a great grain trade and glass-works. In the mining and factory district of the Donetz Plateau there lie, besides innumerable small industrial towns, a number of more important centers. Luhan (60,000 pop.) has a large metallurgical industry with foundries and hammer-works, machine-factories, numerous alcohol-stills, breweries, tanneries, soap and tile factories. Bakhmut (33,000 pop.) has large salt mines and salt-works and considerable trade; the adjacent town of Mikitivka, mercury and coal mines. Yusivka (49,000 pop.) is the chief center of the coal mines, iron and steel factories; Hrushivka (46,000 pop.) the center of the anthracite mines. The Pontian Plain gives us an anthropogeographical picture which is different from that of the thus far described sections of the Ukraine. Here, in the newly settled steppe region, the type of the Ukrainian settlements gradually disappears. The Ukrainian type of the large villages remains, to be sure, but these villages are, by their position, dependent upon the water as well as other conditions of a practical nature, such as roads, mines, etc., which tempt a great number of people to settle in the district. The huts here and there bear the marks of provisional buildings, are not always whitewashed, are covered with reeds, and in some places even earthen huts have been preserved. As a rule, however, the typical Ukrainian whitewashed and straw-covered clay hut advances farther and farther, and is sometimes even prettier and better equipped here than [334]in Northern Ukraine, thanks to the greater prosperity of the peasant. In the last few years more and more brick houses have been built, covered with tiles. Extensive steppe agriculture and steppe cattle-raising have, to this time, been the chief occupation; on the coast, salt-extraction and navigation. Typical Ukrainian towns are rare here, but in the once wild steppes, on the other hand, large commercial and industrial cities have shot up, which possess a much more European appearance than the Russian cities. Almost all these cities lie on the sea, or at the river outlets. The Pontian Plain embraces the southern parts of Bessarabia, Kherson, Katerinoslav, the mainland part of Tauria, the southwestern part of the Don region and the northern part of the Kuban region.