The region of the great Pripet marshes bordering on Brent-
Li+ avele where stubborn fighting has been lately going on in
the centre of the Eastern line of fighting, is deeeribed in a. special article in Tuesday's Times. These marshes are the kernel of the Poliesie, a great triangular tract of woodland between Mohilev and Kiev, the Pripet River, which flows into the Dnieper above Kiev, forming the main artery of an intricate system of sluggish streams, most of them several hundred miles long, whose infinitesimal fall promotes the formation of vast swamps. This great river basin, covering an area of nearly fifty thousand square miles, has a certain family likeness in atmosphere and general aspect to Masuria. The climate is unhealthy, and the population—a mixture of White and Little Russians, Poles, Lithuanians, and Jews— comparatively sparse. In many parts the Poliesie is impass- able in autumn and spring, for, while the Pripet is ice-free for about two hundred and fifty days in the year, the spring floods broaden its waters in some districts to as much as ten miles. From this waste only the gentle slopes, on which the local villages are built, emerge like islands. Much has been done by the Government in the last forty years in the.way of reclama- tion and deforestation, the transport of the main product's— cereals, timber, and salt—being facilitated by canals linking up the Dnieper with the Vistula and Niemen.
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