in St Petersburg is 21 inches, 'and the westerly winds are
most prevalent, although not to the same extent as in Western Europe;
they are also predominant in Moscow and Kasan. In the southern
steppes, it is stated that the average of four years has given only 6
inches fall of rain, occurring in 47 days of the year; but the
irregularity is so great, that single years gave 59, 35, 39, and 53
rainy days. In 1832-3, twenty months elapsed without rain, and in some
years the quantity is only one-tenth of that which falls in wet years.
In the summer, there is no dew, and the ground dries up and cracks,
the plants withering up: 1841, not considered as a dry year, gave only
8-1/2 inches of rain; but in 1831, one of the wettest, the moisture
interfered with agriculture more than the drought does, saturating the
soil, which rests on a deep impermeable clayey formation.' In April
and May, when the snows melt, the steppe is a vast sea of mud, liable
to be hardened by occasional frosts, until, as the season advances,
myriads of crocuses, tulips, and hyacinths, cover the soil, which
perhaps a few days later will be hidden by north-east snowstorms, or
drenched by gales from the north-west. No rain falls for two months
after the middle of June, the luxuriant herbage withers more rapidly
than it grew, and, except in a few spots near the streams, the steppe
becomes a black, arid waste. Yet in some parts of these regions the
vegetation is extraordinary: 'the wormwoods and thistles grow to a
size unknown in the west of Europe; it is said that the thistle-bush,
found where these abound, is tall enough to hide a Cossack horseman.
The natives call all these rank weeds, useless for pasture, _burian_,
and, with the dry dung of the flocks, this constitutes all the fuel
they possess. One curious plant of the thistle tribe has attracted the
notice of most travellers--the wind-witch, as it is called by the
German colonists, or leap-the-field, as the Russian name may be
translated. It forms a large globular mass of light wiry branches
interlaced together, and in autumn decays off at the root, the upper
part drying up. It is then at the mercy of the autumn blast, and it is
said that thousands may sometimes be seen coursing over the plain,
rolling, dancing, and leaping over the slight inequalities, often
looking at a distance like a troop of wild horses. It is not uncommon
for twenty or thirty to become entangled into a mass, and then roll
away, as Mr