Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/320

Rh 308 POLAND [RUSSIAN. Minerals. Climate. ridus, Sow., at Kielcc, and a breccia consisting of Devonian boulders. The Trias is widely spread. It consists of variegated saiulstones, characterized by Myopkoria costata, occurring exten sively in the governments of Kielce and Radom, yielding a fine building stone. The red sandstones north and west of Kielce, con sidered as Permian on Pusch s map, probably belong to the same formation, like the red sandstones in the most northern parts of the Kielce mountains. The &quot; Muschelkalk &quot; appears in the districts of Olkusz and Be.dzin, as also in the Kielce mountains, and has great importance, containing as it does zinc, tin, and iron ores. The &quot; Reaper &quot; in the governments of Kielce, Piotrkow, and Kadom consists of sandstones, dolomites, and limestones, and con tains brown coal and iron ores. The Jurassic formation is widely spread ; in south-west Poland it occupies the space from Olkusz to Wielun, and consists of brown and white &quot;Jura,&quot; the whitish crags of which give pleasing land scapes at Ojcowo and on the Pilica. The Oolite crags of Ojcowo contain numerous caverns, renowned for their bone deposits, worked out for manure, and for their numerous and remarkable Quaternary fossils. That of Jerzmanowice, close by Ojcowo, the largest of the series, has a length of 750 feet. The Cretaceous formation, which covers very large tracts throughout Poland, con sists of lower series of sandstones, and of an upper series containing chalk and limestone, and yielding very fertile marls. They are covered with Tertiary limestones and gypsums, which, together with Cretaceous deposits, cover nearly the whole of the central plain and the northern provinces. The layers of sulphur at Kielce, 7 to 70 feet thick, belong to the Tertiary. The whole is covered with Quaternary deposits, reaching at several places a very great thickness. They are chiefly made up of boulder clay containing Scandinavian erratics of all sizes up to 5 and 7 feet in diameter. The Baltic ridge is quite covered with them, their southern limit extending to 51 N. lat., or perhaps even to 50&quot;, as the longitudinal valleys of the Kielce hills also con tain layers of Scandinavian boulders. Diluvial and alluvial sands and clays cover the glacial deposits ; and everywhere in Poland one meets with remains of extensive lakes that filled up all depressions of the country during the post-Glacial period. Thick peat-bogs are being formed in the moister depressions, and cover an aggregate surface of no less than 2,800,000 acres. In these lacustrine deposits numerous traces of prehistoric man have been found, but the old lake beds still await a more thorough exploration. The bone caves at Ojcowo have yielded rich finds of extinct mammals, thirty-two species of which are familiar to explorers of British caverns ; the cave-bear alone has yielded fully four thousand canine teeth, while the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the cave hyaena, and especially the reindeer, are repre sented by numerous remains. The bones of extinct mammals have been found in association with very numerous relics of man, some of which are most probably Palaeolithic, while the great number belong to the Neolithic period, those cave-inhabitants being in some instances dolichocephalic, like those of the shores of post- Glacial lakes, and in others mesocephalic. Southern Poland is rich in minerals, especially in the Kielce moun tains and the region adjacent to Prussian Silesia. The Devonian sandstones contain malachite ores at Medziana Gora, near Kielce, and copper has been worked there since the 15th century. In the years 1816-1826 65,000 cwts. of copper ore were extracted, but the mines are now neglected. The brown iron ores, also Devonian, of Kielce, and especially those of Daleszyc, contain no less than 40 per cent, of iron. The Triassic zinc ores of the Olkusz district, more than 50 feet thick at Bolesiaw, contain 8 to 14 per cent, sometimes 25 per cent., of zinc ; and in 1879 2,866,000 cwts. of ore were extracted from nine pits, yielding about 100,000 cwts. of zinc. The tin ores of Olkusz, also Triassic, are still more import ant, and were extensively wrought as early as the 16th century, notwithstanding the difficulties arising from the presence of water ; they are reported to have then yielded more than 35,000 cwts. per annum. In 1878 the very fluctuating yield reached only 8960 cwts. Brown iron ores appearing in the neighbourhood of Bedzin as lenses 55 feet thick, and containing 25 to 33 per cent, of iron, accompany the Triassic zinc ores. Spherosiderites and brown iron ores are also widely spread in the &quot; Keuper.&quot; Sulphur is wrought at Czarkowa, in the district of Piriczow ; the deposits, which con tain 25 per cent, of sulphur, reach a thickness of 7 to 70 feet, and the amount of sulphur is estimated at 1,300,000 cwts. Carboniferous coal is spread in south-west Poland over a surface of about 200 square miles in the districts of Bedzin and Olkusz, which are estimated to contain 732,000,000 cubic yards of coal. The Triassic brown coal, which appears in the Olkusz district in layers 3 to 7 feet thick, has lately been worked out, the single pit of St John yielding in 1879 204,200 cwts. of coal. Of other mineral produce, chalk exported from Lublin, a few quarries of marble, and many of building stones are worthy of notice. Mineral waters are used medicinally at Ciechocin and Natychow. With the exception of the Lysa Gora hilly tracts (Kielce and South Radom), which lie within the isotherms of 41 and 42, Poland is situated between the isotherms of 42 and 46. The isotheres and isocheims (i.e., lines of equal mean summer and winter temperature) crossing one another at right angles, and the former running east-north-east, Poland is included between the isotheres of 64 U and 61 and the isocheims of 35 7 and 39 2. The prevailing winds are westerly, with north -north -east and south winds in autumn and winter, and east winds in spring. The number of rainy and snowy days varies from 152 to 158, increasing towards the Baltic, with an average of 21 7 to 23 - 6 inches of rainfall in central Poland, which figures slowly increase also towards the south on account of the proximity of the Carpathians, where they reach 30 3 inches. Of the above amounts, about 17 per cent, fell in spring, 29 per cent, in summer, 21 per cent, in autumn, and 33 per cent, in winter. Owing to this distribution the snow-cover ing in Poland is not very thick, and the spring sets in early. Still, frosts lowering the thermometer to - 4 and - 22 Fahr. are not uncommon, and the rivers are covered with ice for two and a half to three months, the Warta being under ice for 70 to 80 days, the Vistula at Warsaw for 80 days and (exceptionally) even for 116, and the Niemen for 100 (exceptionally for 140). The following averages may help to give a more adequate idea of the climate of Poland : Warsaw. Vilna. Earliest frost ! Oct. 18 Latest frost j Mar. 15 Average maximum temperature ! 857 Average minimum do. ; 17 Absolute maximum do. 95 5 Absolute minimum do. 37 6 Bright days 40 Cloudy days ; 154 Annual rainfall (total) j 22 8 in. Rainfall November to March 67 in. Prevailing winds in January S. E. ,, in July W. ,, ,, during the year... j S.E. Oct. 17 Mar. 25 85 l -9 6 89 3 -39 23 175 7 6 in. 47 in. S. W. W. The flora of Poland is more akin to that of Germany than to that Flora, of Russia, several middle European species finding their north-east limits in the basin of the Niemen or in the marshes of Lithuania. Coniferous forests, consisting mostly of pine (Pinus sylvcstris) and birch, cover large tracts in Mazovia, extending over the Baltic lake- ridge, reaching southwards as far as the junction of the Bug with the Narew, and joining in the south-east the &quot; Polyesie &quot; of the Pripet. The pine covers also the Lysa Gora hills and those on the San. The larch (Larix curopasa), which three centuries ago covered large tracts, has almost entirely disappeared ; it is now met with only in the Samsonowski forests of Saudomeria. The Pinus Ccmbra is only remembered, as also the Taxns baccata, which has but a few representatives in Sandonieriau forests, on the Pilica, on the puszczas of Ostroieka, and in the Preny forests on the Niemen. The Picea obovata is cultivated. Of leaf-bearing trees, the common beech (Fafjus sylvatica) is the most typical of the Polish flora ; it extends from the Carpathians to 52 N. lat., and three degrees farther north in small groups or isolated specimens ; the confluence of the Bug and Narew may still be regarded as its eastern limit. The white beech (Carpinus Betulus), the aspen (Populus trcmulu), and two elms ( Ulmus campestris, U. effusa) are found nearly everywhere, mingled with other trees in forests. The same is true with regard to the lime-tree ( Tilia parvi- folia), which appears in groves only in the east (Niemen, Pripet, Lublin). It is the most popular tree with the Poles, as the birch with the Russians ; judgment of old was pronounced under its shade, and all the folk-lore songs repeat its name. The oak a highly venerated tree in Poland, though not so much as in Lithuania grows in forests only on the most fertile patches of land, but it is of common occurrence in conjunction with the beech, elm, &c. The maples (Acer platanoidcs and A. pscudopla- tanus) are somewhat rare ; the black alder (Alnus cjlutinosa) covers the banks of the rivers and canals, and the Alnus incana is common. The willow, and the orchard trees apple, pear, plum, and cherry are cultivated everywhere. The flora of Poland contains 12 per cent, of Composite, 6 per cent, of Leguminosas, 2 per cent, of Labiatx, 4 per cent, of Umbelli- ferK, 5 per cent, of Crucifcrse, and 2 per cent, of Conifcrae. The wheat frontier coincides very nearly with that of the leaf- bearing forests. It yields good crops on the fertile tracts of Sando- meria and Lublin, and on the plains of the Vistula and Wartha, but does not thrive very well beyond 52 N. lat. Rye, oats, barley, buckwheat, and hemp are cultivated everywhere, and flax in the east ; hops are very common, and tobacco-culture has been begun in the south. Some attempts in sericulture have been made with success. The fauna of Poland belongs to the middle European zoological Faui group ; within the historical period it has lost such species as formerly gave it a subarctic character. The reindeer now occurs