VERNAL JOURNEY TO ASTRAKHAN. 109

fteppe. From this place to Yerfhova Vataga is reckoned fevenverfts, and about three verfts farther there is a farm containingfour houfes for rearing cattle, on the manor of Naryfhin.The major part of the nobility, or proprietors, who have dividedthe lands on the banks of the Volga, pay little regard to eitherpopulation or tillage. They only endeavour to maintain theirright of poueffion by inconfiderable eftablifhments, in order toderive fome advantage from the fifheries.

After travelling eleven verfts, I pafied the night of the 18that Solotnikofskoi) or Salnikova^ a village fituated near SolotnikovaVataga, and which was formerly the only one in this neigh-bourhood. Above the village is Yablonnoi Buyerak, or theapple glen, the bottom of which, between the thickets, was nowcovered with young chervil, which grew on a black mould. Wehad before obferved this herb near Sarepta, in what is calledthe chervil glen. The fandy marl of the fteep banks ofYablonnoi Buyerak, is interfperfed with numerous indented'mufcles fimilar to thofe of the Cafpian Sea, and which probablyhave been depofited by the Ocean. The large and fteep SolänoiBuyerak, or falt glen, is about four verfts below the village, andextends, with two of its dependent branches, a confiderable wayinto the country. Every fpecies of marine plants grow alongthe fides of this glen in abundance; but at the bottom theUlmus pumila, which is of a confiderable fize, and the Thlafpiarvenfe and Burfa were the only plants in bloflom. I obfervedon its fteep banks feveral layers of Fuller's earth, of an orangecolour, above the fandy ftrata, and mingled with well-prefervedfhells, like thofe of the Cafpian Sea. On the fouthern fide wefaw the Tulipa biflora and ßlveßris already fading, and the

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