Russia

Russia has only a few island possessions. The Aleutian archi pelago and Alaska were sold to the United States in 1867, and the Kurile Islands ceded to Japan in 1875. The Baltic Islands with exception of those at the mouth of the Neva were ceded after the 1917 revolution. The Commander Islands off Kamchatka, the Shantar Islands near the Pacific coast and the Island of Sakhalin north of lat. 5o° N. remain Russian. The chief islands off the Arctic coast belonging to Russia are Kolguev Island, Novaya Zemlya (with Vaygach Island), the Nicholas II. group north of the Taimyr peninsula, the New Siberia Islands (north of Laptev Sound) and Wrangel Island. Attempts on the part of V. Stefans son in 1921-24 to establish a British claim to Wrangel Island met with no official support in Britain or Canada, and in August 1924, the Russian flag was hoisted on the island. Franz Josef land is not included among Russian claims and is at present a terra nullius; Spitsbergen and Bear Island were recognized as being under Norwegian sovereignty in 192o.

Russia is a very large region of vast plains characterised by climatic extremes in eastern Europe, western and northern Asia. Within its limits Europe and Asia overlap into one another in various ways and even the Ural Mountains are only an incomplete boundary between the European section, in which southward drainage (to the Black and Caspian Seas) is more important and the Asiatic section, which drains largely to the Arctic, though some rivers flow into the Aral Sea.

The fundamental feature of Russia is the great platforms, once in all probability a continuous platform, of Archaean and Palae ozoic rocks, the latter still horizontal over enormous areas though folded, for example, in the Urals. Russia, therefore, apart from the border lands of the Pacific, Mongolia, Eastern Turkestan, Afghanistan, Persia and Armenia, shows far less mountain folding than do western and southern Europe and Central Asia, though the foldings of the latter have to some extent influenced the physical geography of the Russian plains and have penetrated into them to form the Urals.

The fold mountains of central Asia on the whole become con tinuously younger as we proceed from the region of Lake Baikal southwestwards to the Pamirs and the Hindu Kush. Range after range runs, more or less, west to east, each successive one tending to extend farther west than that to the north of it. These ranges are discussed in the general article on Asia (q.v.) and it is neces sary here rather to refer to their influence on the northern plat form. The ranges called Sayan (with basaltic lavas in the east), Tannu-Ola and Altai belong to ancient foldings, the last being mainly Hercynian or Permo-Carboniferous, according to prevail ing opinion. These old ranges are deeply dissected by what seem to be erosion-valleys with steep sides and alluvial bottoms (old lake floors) on which settlements have been made ; some lakes still remain. Lake floors abound on the surface of Asiatic Russia

illustrating the fact that in earlier post glacial times lakes seem to have covered vast areas in this region. To the south of the Altai mountains is the great physical feature called the Dzun garian Gate between the Altai and the Tian Shan. This is a region of very varied topography in which, in spite of local heights, relatively low land (some of it less than 1,5oo ft. above sea level) projects from the lower western lands far to the east be tween the mountain ranges named. Towards the west side of the Dzungarian region lies lake Balkhash, now without outlet but still fresh.

Natural Divisions.

On the south side of the Dzungarian Gate rises sharply the immense range of the Tian Shan, far sur passing the Alps in extent and differing markedly from them in character. Their general direction is west-south-west to east north-east and they rise sharply from the high plains along their flanks with much conspicuous faulting. Westwards they branch forming almost independent chains with some northward deflec tion. Suess has suggested that their structural features may be traceable ultimately through western Asia via the Turgai steppe to the Urals as well as south of Aral to the Caucasus. The Urals lie approximately along long. 60° E., and far to the east the next conspicuous feature of northern Russia is the edge of the Yenisei plateau approximately along long. go° E. These two lines, prob ably related to one another in origin, help to divide north Russia into natural regions, (a) Northern European Russia west of the Urals.

(b) The Urals themselves.

(c) The great lowland of the Ob.

(d) The plateau east of the Yenisei and west of the Lena to which may be added (e) The region east of the Lena dominated in the main by fold mountains belonging to the border zone of the Pacific ocean.

Northern European Russia possesses large areas of unfolded Palaeozoic rocks lying on an ancient (Archaean) floor of granites, gneisses, and syenites which emerges on the west in Finland, the Kola peninsula, and Scandinavia. Along the line from the White Sea to the Gulf of Finland (via lakes Ladoga and Onega) the ancient floor becomes covered by Palaeozoic rocks, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian succeeding one another eastwards towards the Northern Dwina. The upper Permian beds have yielded Glossopteris and other plants characteristic of "Gond wana Land" and animal remains like those of the correspond ing formation in S. Africa. Beyond that river the lower levels are mainly alluvials but there are glacial Pleistocene deposits between the river lines.