Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/324

306 ducal diet; in it was visited by a terrible pestilence; and in the Polish-Lithuanian invasion it witnessed the defeat of Sapieha by Prince Ivan Karukin. Population in, 8042.  DMITROVSK, a town of European Russia, in the government of Orel, near the Nerusa, a sub-tributary of the Dnieper, about 57 s south-west of the town of Orel, in 52 30 N. lat. and 35 4 9&quot; E. long. It consists of about 700 wooden houses, has four churches and a hospital, manufactures soap, and deals in grain, hemp, linseed oil, and tallow. Dmitrovsk was founded by, the hospodar of Moldavia, who in received from Peter I. the district in which it stands in compensation for the loss he had sustained in Moldavia; and its first inhabitants consisted of Malo Russian and Wallachian immigrants. Population, 7600.  DNIEPER, the Borysthenes of the Greeks, Danapris of the Romans, Uzi of the Turks, Eksi of the Tatars, Elice of Visconti's map, Lerene of Contarini, and Luosen of Baptista of Genoa, is one of the most important rivers of Europe, ranking after the Volga and the Danube. It belongs to Russia, and takes its rise in the government of Smolensk, in a swampy district at the foot of the Valdai Hills, not far from the sources of the Volga and the Dwina, in 55 52 N. lat. and 33 41 E. long. Its length is about 11,000 s, and it drains an area of 242,000 s, which supports a population of upwards of twelve million inhabitants. In the first part of its course, which may be said to end at Dorogobush, it flows through an undulating country of Carboniferous formation; in the second it passes west to Orsha, south through the great fertile plain of Kisheneff and Chernigoff, and then south-east across the rocky steppe of the Ukraine to Ekaterinoslaff. About 45 s south of this town it has to force its way across the same granitic offshoot of the Carpathian Mountains which interrupts the course of the Dniester and the Bug, and for a distance of about 40 s rapid succeeds rapid. The whole fall of the river in that space is 155, the greatest of the ten distinctly marked rapids, that at Nenasitetz, having an average of 3 es in every 50, and the smallest, or the Leshni Porog, about /ths of an in the same distance. The river having got clear of the rocks continues south-west through the grassy plains of Kherson and Tauris, and enters the Black Sea by means of a considerable estuary in 46 21 N. lat. and 32 20 E. long. The navigation of the Dnieper extends as far up as Dorogobnsh, where the depth is about 12, and rafts are floated down from the higher reaches. About the town of Smolensk the breadth is 455 , at the confluence of the Pripet 1400, and in some parts of the Ekaterinoslaff district as much as 7000. In the course above the rapids the channel varies very greatly in nature and depth, and it is not unfrequently interrupted by shallows, no fewer than 55 being counted in the Kieff government alone. The rapids, or jwrogs, form a serious obstacle to navigation; it is only for a few weeks, when the river is in flood, that they are passable, and even then the venture is not without risk, and can only be undertaken with the assistance of the special pilots, who to the number of 2000 or 3000 have established themselves at Lotmanskaya-Kamenka and other places in the neighbourhood. As early as an attempt was made to improve the channel, and extensive operations have since been carried on from time to time. A canal, which ultimately proved too small for use, was constructed at Nenasitetz in at private expense; blastings were employed in  and  at various parts by Generals Beshand Devolan; in a canal was formed at Kaindatzki, and the channel rectified at Sursk; by a new canal was completed at Nenasitetz; in  a passage was cleared through the Starokaindatzki Porog; and in the period from to  a whole series of ameliorations were effected. The result has been not only greatly to diminish the dangers of the natural channel, but also to furnish a series of artificial canals by which vessels can make their way when the water is too low in the river. Between and , 277 vessels and 674 rafts passed the rapids annually; and only 4 of these vessels came to grief. Within recent s the water in the river has been unusually low, but it is expected that the draining of the Pinsk marshes may remedy the evil. Of the tributaries of the Dnieper the following are navigable, the Berezina and the Pripet from the right, and the Merea and Sozh and the Borona and Desna from the left. In the upper parts of the river the fisheries are not of sufficient importance to consti tute a separate occupation: but in the estuary they attract a large concourse of people from the neighbouring governments, and form almost the sole means of subsistence for the Swedish colonists. At Kieff the river is free from ice on an average 267 s in the, at Ekateriiioslaff 274, and at Kherson from 280 to 285.  DNIESTER, the Tyras of the classical authors, and the Turla of the Turks, a river of south-eastern Europe belonging to the basin of the Black Sea. It takes its rise on the northern slope of the Carpathian Mountains in the Sambor circle of Galicia, and belongs for the first 330 s of its course to an, for the remaining 600 to Russian territory. In its excessive meandering it frequently almost returns to the same spot; for example, while the actual distance from Turunchuk to Mayakoff is about 33 s, the development of the river would require about 133. At the same time, as the average fall is from 25 to 26 es in the, the current in most parts even during low water is pretty rapid, the mean rate per being calculated at 8638. The average width of the channel is from 560 to 700, but in some places it attains as much as 1400 ; the depth is various and changeable. The banks are usually about 3500 apart, but in certain reaches approach each other so as to leave room for nothing but the actual bed; their average height above the water in the Bessarabian portion is 350. The principal interruption in the navigable portion of the river, besides the somewhat extensive shallows, is occasioned by a granitic spur from the Carpathians, and bears the name of the Yampolskie Porogi, or Yampol Rapids. For ordinary river-craft the passage of these rapids is rendered possible, but not free from danger, by a natural channel on the left side, and a larger and deeper artificial channel on the right; for steam-boats they form an insuperable barrier. The river falls into the sea by several shallow arms, of which the most important has a depth of only 2/ near its mouth; but the Turunchuk, an independent stream, disemboguing in the neighbourhood, has a depth of 7 or 8, and is connected with the main channel of the Dniester by the Surovtzoff canal, so named after the merchant at whose expense it was constructed. There are two periodical floods in the river, the first and greatest caused by the breaking up of the ice, and occurring in the latter part of February or in March; and the second, due to the melting of the snows of the Carpathians, and consequently taking place about June. The spring flood raises the level of the water 20, and pours along so violent a current that large blocks of stone are drifted from their position; towards the mouth of the river gardens and vineyards are submerged, and the surface of the stream measures from four to six s across. In some s the general state of the water is so low that navigation is possible only for three or four weeks, while in other s it is so high that navigation continues without interruption. Steamboat traffic was introduced in the lower reaches in, when 