The Ukrainian plateau group, the real morphological nucleus of the land about which its borderlands are gathered, extends from the sub-Carpathian country and the Polish Vistula-region to the Sea of Azof and the Donetz River. It consists of the following plateaus: Rostoche, Podolia, Pokutye (Bessarabia), Volhynia, Dnieper Plateau and Donetz Plateau. We shall begin our survey of the Ukrainian plateaus [39]with the Podolia. The Podolian Plateau is the most massive of all the plateaus in the Ukraine, the highest, and the one possessing the most distinctive features of a heavily cut high plain. If, leaving the Carpathians, we overlook the surrounding country from the edge of the mountain range, we observe behind the wide stretch of the sub-Carpathian hills and plains, just on the horizon, wide, flat elevations, which obstruct the horizon in the north. These are the edges of the Podolian Plateau. The western boundary of Podolia is formed by the wide valley of the little Vereshitza River, a valley covered with swampy meadows and large ponds. On the south and southeast, Podolia is bounded by the valley of the Dniester River, which is first wide and then narrows down to a cañon. Between the lower course of the Dniester and the Boh, the Podolian Plateau gradually leads into the Pontian Steppe-plain. On the north and northeast, Podolia is bounded by the rocky valley of the Boh and then by the river divide, which extends toward the west, between the basins of the Dniester and Dnieper Rivers. Near its limit begins the well-known steep edge which forms the decline of the Podolian Plateau to the plain of the Buh. From Brody to Lemberg, the northern boundary of Podolia is very clearly marked by this steep edge. Despite its distinct plateau character, Podolia is by no means lacking in beautiful landscapes. The northern, steep, border of the Plateau occasionally rises for 200 m. above the swampy Buh plain, and its height above sea level is in some places 470 m. The whitish-gray chalk-marl which forms the basis of this land grade glitters from a distance, exposed thru the action of the water, which flows down the steep side. The miocene sandstone lying above shows fantastic rock piles and ravines. Beautiful beech forests are to a great extent still maintaining themselves [40]on the steep edge. From a distance, everything produces the illusion of a high forest-covered chain of hills. On climbing it, however, we see in the south only an unbounded lightly undulating elevated plain, with flat valleys filling the entire view.