b o o k 0f f a n ( j anci ciay ; the lower part, and upwards, to about
half its height, is thickly ftrewed with detached pieces of red
and grey granite, fimilar to many others which make their
appearance about the adjacent country. I meafured one of
thefe mafl'es, and found it to be twelve feet broad, eight
thick, and five above the furface of the ground, but how
deep it was buried I could not afcertain.
Naturalifts greatly differ concerning the origin of thefe
granitical maffes, and by what means they were thus diffufed
about the face- of the earth. Some conjecture, that they
were brought and left there by the waters ; others fuppofe
them to have originally made parts of the primitive rocks
which exifted in many places of the globe, and which by
lapfe of time, or by violent convulfions, have crumbled or
been broken to pieces, and have left every where thefe vaft
fragments as monuments of their prior exiftence *.
Upon the fummit of this hill is a brick white-waihed
church, which is a pleafing objeCt from the adjacent grounds.
From its top we had a very lingular and extenfive profpeit.
Immediately at its foot the country, for three or four miles,
is fomewhat open, and divided into large enclofures of pafture
and corn. Towards the fouth rife the Valdai hills, Ikirting
an immenfe plain, which ftretches towards the north, eaft, and
weft, as far as the eye can reach ; a vaft expanfe without a
fingle hillock to obftruCt the view : it feemed little more
than an endlefs foreft, dotted with a few folitary wooden
villages, which appeared fo many points in a boundlefs de-
fert. Beyond, at a great diftance, we obferved the fpires of
* See fome curious conjectures upon vertes dans plulieurs contrées de la Ruf-
thefe granite Itones o f Bronitza, in Pallas’s lie, &c. V o l. I. p. 42,. &c.
Travels j and alfo in Hiitoire des Decou-
Novogorod,
Novogorod, and the lake Ilmen, fcarcely difcernible through CHAP-
the thick gloom of the trees, •., . L .
The forwardnefs of the harveft in this northern climate
has been already mentioned-*-: it had been fome time taken
in, and the new corn was already fpringing up in many
places; that vegetable remains, during winter, buried under
thefnow; at the melting of which, in fpring, it Ihoots up fpee-
dily in thefe countries, where vegetation, upon the returning
warmth of the feafon, is very quick in all its operations*
But as the lhortneis of the fummer does not always allow
the grain time to ripen, the peafants ufe the following method
of drying it. They conftrudt a wooden building, fomewhat
fimilar to the ihell of their common cottages, without
windows, and with only a-i-mall door: under this ftruCfure
is a large cavity, in which-, a fire being made, the new-cut
corn, in the ear, is laid upon the floor and dried; it is then
bung upon frames in the open air, and afterwards threfhed.
In this part of our journey we paffed by numberlefs herds
of oxen, moving towards Peteriburgh for the fupply of that
capital. Moft of them had been brought from the Ukraine,
the neareft part of which country is diftant 800 miles from
the metropolis. During this long progrefs the drivers
feldom enter any houfe; they flop to feed their cattle
upon the flips of pafture which lie on each fide o f the road ;
and they themfelves have no other covering in bad weather
but what is afforded by the foliage of the trees. In the
evening the ftill filence of the country was awfully
interrupted by the occafional lowing of the oxen, and the
carols of the drivers, while the folitary gloom of the foreft
was enlivened by the glare of numerous fires, furrounded
by different groups of herdfmen in various attitudes; fome
* p. 252.
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