The transition of the Dnieper Plain to the southern spurs of the Central Russian Plateau is marked only by the rising of the valley slopes of the tributaries of the Dnieper in this region. Beyond that, the surface of the high bog, lying between the rivers, remains as flat and level as on the Dnieper and below the 200 m. level. Moreover, the spurs of the Central Russian elevation nowhere within Ukrainian territory attain the level of 300 m. The spur between the Dnieper and the Desna barely reaches a height of 230–240 m.; near the high Desna bank, the spur between the Desna and the Sem barely 260 m. About the sources of the Sem, Psiol and Donetz, the country attains a summit height of 280 m.; between the upper Donetz and Don only 250–260 m. From these highest regions the country declines imperceptibly but steadily toward the southwest, south and southeast. The general nature of the land in the region of the southern spur of the Central Russian Plateau is entirely analogous to that of the neighboring Dnieper Plain, except that the river valleys are more deeply cut. The right valley-side descends to the river in a steep slope, furrowed by water rifts. The broad, flat valley bottom is occupied by river branches and old river beds, marshes and marsh meadows, sand areas or dunes. The left bank rises very gently, and we at last come upon the level, or at most slightly undulating surface of the water-shed, between two rivers. It, in turn, declines suddenly to the neighboring river and the succession of land-forms begins anew. This monotony of landscape reminds one of the neighboring Great Russia. The only variety is afforded here by the details of landscape, which appear most numerous in this region of the Ukraine. These are rain water-rifts (in Ukrainian balka, provallia, yaruha). In this, and often in other plateau and plain lands of the Ukraine, they become a terrible scourge. The [60]heavy mantle of black soil, loess and loam favors the formation of water-rifts as well as the loose chalk and old tertiary strata (marl, sand, clay). The strenuous cutting down of forest in the past century has given the final impulse to the formation of such water clefts. In the loose soil, no longer held together by the forests, the water-rifts grow and spread after every heavy rain with terrible speed, and may, in a few years, reduce a wealthy farmer to the beggar’s staff by transforming his most profitable black-soil fields into a maze of deep, dry ravines. Only a national re-stocking of the forests could bring the land relief. Especially in the neighborhood of the high precipitous banks of the rivers, the water-rifts work their mischief.