The configuration of surface of the Dnieper Plateau is varied enough. The greatest height (300 m.) is reached south of Berdichiv. Toward the east and southeast the plateau becomes constantly lower. This lowering, however, [50]does not proceed regularly, different sections of the plateau presenting different conditions in this respect. The section projecting furthest toward the west to the Sob and Ross Rivers is a level, slightly divided plateau, with a maximum height of 300 m. The tributaries of the Teterev, Irpen and Ross flow slowly in flat valleys thru whole rows of ponds. Where they enter the plain they finally have steep granite banks and rocky beds. The plateau section between the Sob and Ross Rivers in the west and the Siniukha and Huili Tikich in the east has more valleys. The river valleys and balkas are deeper, their sides rockier, and thru them the plateau is transformed in places into chains and groups of flat hills. But this plateau section is lower than the preceding one, attaining only 260 m. Still lower is the section between the Siniukha and the Inhuletz. It attains a height of only 240 m. and is very even. The granite sub-layer appears here even in the level steppe; the valleys and balkas are cut deep with rocky bottoms and rocky slopes. Besides these three sections, the Dnieper plateau embraces two long strips of plateau which stretch along the right bank of the Dnieper. The one is surrounded by the Dnieper, Irpen, and Ross Rivers, the other stretches from the source of the Tiasmin to the rapids of the Dnieper. The height of these strips of plateau is negligible, the highest points attaining just 190 m. near Kiev, 240 m. between Trekhtimiriv and Kaniv, 250 m. near Chihirin, and barely 180 m. at the first of the rapids. The steep declivity with which the plateau strips descend to the Dnieper plain emphasize the antithesis between plateau and plain in this region very markedly. The difference in level surpasses 100 m. near Kiev and Katerinoslav and 150 m. near the Shevchenko barrow, not far from Kaniv. The declivity of the right bank of the Dnieper is much torn by gorges, and everywhere we [51]see picturesque rock piles. The steep bank appears, especially to a plain-dweller, like a chain of mountains and is even called “the mountains of the Dnieper.” The idea of a “mountain bank” of the Dnieper, therefore, need not be rejected outright. The aspect of Kiev and the Shevchenko barrow is one of the most beautiful in the entire Ukraine. On ascending this “mountain chain,” however, which appears so imposing from the left bank of the river, and looking toward the west, we find before us only a slightly undulating plateau surface, with rounded dome-shaped hills and deep valleys, belonging to the right-hand tributaries of the Dnieper.