The many balkas, which divide the steppe-plain into innumerable low plateaus, do not affect the grand uniformity of the steppe landscape very much. As in the neighboring [62]plateaus, they are cut in deep, but do not become visible to the traveler until he comes directly upon them. The pliocene steppe-lime which predominates in the entire steppe-plain, covers the sarmatian and Mediterranean strata, and reveals the crystalline substratum only in the west of the Dnieper in the neighborhood of the Dnieper Plateau, and forms rocky cornices on the slopes of the balkas. Lesser tectonic disturbances, in the shape of anticlinals and synclinals, have affected these youngest tertiary formations also. They are covered by a mantle of loess and black earth, which becomes constantly thinner toward the south. The typical chornozyom gives way, south of the parallel of Kherson, to the brown, also very fertile steppe-soil, which is accompanied in long stretches, however, by the saline earth. To the east of the Dnieper, at the southern spurs of the Donetz Plateau, the crystalline substratum also appears to a great extent, in banks of rock, in the midst of the steppe-plain. Only along the large streams of the steppe country does the nature of the land change. Their valleys are broad and swampy, covered by the so-called plavni. Interminable thickets of sedge and seeds, marsh forest and meadows, together with innumerable river branches, old river beds, and small lakes, make up a beautiful, fresh, verdant country in the midst of the boundless steppe, whose vernal dress, resplendent with blossoms, turns yellow and blackish-brown in summer and fall, from the fierce glow of the sun. [63] [Contents] Streams and Rivers of the Ukraine The Ukrainian rivers are genuinely typical of Eastern Europe. The great uniformity of the surface configuration of the Ukraine is responsible for the lack of that variety in its own river system which characterizes the waters of Western and Central Europe. But the great extent of the land does cause the Ukraine to have mountain, plateau and lowland streams, so that it does not attain the degree of uniformity in hydrographic conditions of Russia proper.