Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 17.djvu/403

* RUSSELL. 365 RUSSIA. the Times to the spat (if tlio C'viiiienii ':ir. in the ilcscriptioii of wliic'li lio e.stablislieil a luf;li repu- tation for brilliancy of (i. and de- serilied in the Tiiius the eoroiiation of the Czar. In 1850 he was sent to India on the occasion of the nuitiny. and was with Lord Clyde from the capture of LucUnow until the close of the mutiny. In 1S.")S he returned to Enj,'land. and established the Armi/ (Did Xavi/ Gntrlfe (18(50), which lie continued to edit. In IS(il he was sent by the Tiiiica as war correspondent to the United States, but returned after the first battle of Hull Run, «hen he rendered himself obnoxious to the Tnion leaders. In ISfiG he was present at the battle of Kuniggrtitz or Sadowa ; in 1870 at the battles of Sedan and the siege and fall of Paris; in 1879-80, in South Africa: and in 1883-84, in Egypt. He published: Letters from the Crimea; Diari/ ill India : Mi/ Diary Xorth and fiouth ; The Prince of ^yalcs's Tour, etc. He was knighted in 180.5. RUSSELL VILLE. The county-seat of Logan County, Ky.. :> miles southwest of Bowling Green, on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad (Map: Kentucky, E 4). It is the scat of Hethel College (Baptist), opened in 1S.')4, and of the Logan Female College ( iletliodist Episcopal, South), opened in 1850. The city manufactures flour and leather. Five miles northeast of Rus- sellville is an extensive asphalt mine. Popula- tion, in ISiin, 22.5:1; in 1900, 2591. RUSSEL'S VIPER. See Viper. RUSSIA, n'lsh'a. An empire embracing one- sixth of the land surface of the earth. With an area of about ^,650,000 square miles, it is nearl,v three times as large as the United States, exclusive of Alaska. It includes more than one- half of Europe and the whole of Northern Asia, and has the largest continuous area of any realm in the world. It roughlv presents the form of a rectangle whose length is twice its width. Its vast coast line is washed by the Arc- tie Ocean on the north and the Pacific Ocean on the east. The southern frontier, dividing it from the Chinese Empire, Afghanistan. Persia, and variotis native States under tlie protection either of Russia or Oreat Britain, is mainlv marked by great natural features, such as the Amur River, and tlie mountain ramparts of Sayan. Tiau-Shan, and Alai-tagh, which overlook the widespread grass.v steppes or sand,v wastes of Central Asia. In Western .sia, however, the plains of Siberia merge with the steppes of Russian Turkestan, where nature interposed no obstacles to the easy conquests of Russia, which has here pushed its frontier farthest south in Asia. In the north- west and southwest the empire tonclies the Baltic and Black seas, but elsewhere in the west it merges with the States of Vestprn Europe — Rumania and Austria-IIungarv in the south, Prussia in the centre, and Sweden and Norway in the extreme north. The Imperial territory was extended in 1899 by the formation of the Province of Kwang-tiuig. leased from China and including Port Arthur. Ta-lien-wan. and the adja- cent seas and territory to the north. This new possession is already connected with Saint Peters- burg by a branch of the Trans-Siberian Railroad. The empire may be divided into five parts: (1) Russia in Europe (with Poland and the Grand Duchy of Finland) ; (2) the Caucasus ( Northern Caucasia, or Cisciuiensin, and Trnns- caucasia) ; (i) Siberia; (4) Russian Cen- tral .sia: (5) Kwangtting. The hearl of thi« enormous State is IJussia in Europe, or Russia proper. This artich- will deal espe<'inllv with Russia in Europe, and with the .siatie ilonuiin of the empire only in its relation to Hie empire as a whole. For a Ireatm.'Ut of the |)olitieal divisions of Asiatic Russia the reader in re- ferred to the appropriate headings. The main- land of Russia in Europe lies between 44" .'tO' and 70° N. latitude and between 17° 30' and iia" 30' E. longitiule. its area ih 2,0!l5.lilO square miles, or a little mcue than fwolhirds that of the I'niled States exclusive of .hiska. It is separated from Northwestern SilnTia liv the Northern Ural Mountains, .south of whieli the boundary is artificially fi.xed to the east and south of the Urals to inel'nde within the domain of Russia proper all of the niouutaiu mining dis- tricts. The valley of the .I;inylch betwi'en the Caspian and the Sea of .zov' divides it from Caucasia and is generally iieceiited as the south- ern limit of Europe in that ipiarter. The Black Sea, the Sea of Azov, and the northern edge of the Danube delta complete its southern boundary, and its western and northern limits are those of the empire as given above. The largest isl- ands belonging to European Russia are the two called collectively Novaya Zemlya (Nova Zcm- bla ), in tlu' Arctic Ocean. Toi'ouR.M'HY. In its surface features Russia is in striking contrast with the smaller part of Europe west of it. Though it has about .5000 miles of coast line, it has few of the large gulfs, inlets, and peninsulas that broke Western Europe into detaclied masses and destined it to develnp great, independent nationalities. The coasts of Russia leave it a compact mass, irregularly quadrilateral in form; and the geographic unity of this great land mass is completed by the fact that it wliollv lacks the great diversity of plains, plateaus, highlands, deep valleys, and declivities which give endless variety to the surface features of Western Europe. As a whole Russia is a great plain stretching away in endless monotony from its western confines and the ice ocean on the north; and the plain is not limited by the European domain of the emjiire, but extend.s bevond the Ur;ils to Bering Sea in the extreme niutheast and across the Turkestan steppes to Persia and Afghanistan in the south. Thtis the ]il:iins of the empire are far more extensive in Asia than in Europe. It was this plain that gave unrivaled op])ortunity for and direction to the vast territorial exjiansion of Russia, The empire mav be crossed to every ocean that touches it without leaving these vast low tracts where the horizon drops around the traveler as on a voy- ager at sea. The plain of European Russia in its general level is from 300 to 000 feet above the sea. A few areas, conspicuous only because of the monotonous uniformity of most of the countrv, rise to a height of over 1000 feet. The higher altitudes of the interior of Russia are chielly disposed in two masses, extending north and south. They have been designated under the names of the Heights of Central Russia and the Heights of the Xdlga. The Heights of Central Russia culminate in the plateau of aldai (1150 feet high). (See Vai.oai Hili-s.i It very clearly separates the low plains thai border" the Baltic from the low plains of the