DNIEPER, the Borysthenes of the Greeks, Danapris of the Romans, Uzi of the Turks, Eksi of the Tatars, Elice of Visconti’s map (1381), Lerene of Çontarini (1437), and Luosen of Baptista of Genoa (1514), 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° 4Γ E. long. Its length is about 11,000 miles, and it drains an area of 242,000 square miles, 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 miles 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 miles rapid succeeds rapid. The whole fall of the river in that space is 155 feet,—the greatest of the ten distinctly marked rapids, that at Nenasitetz, having an average of 3 inches in every 50 feet, and the smallest, or the Leshnì Porog, about If ths of an inch 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° 2Γ N. lat. and 32 n 20' E. long. The navigation of the Dnieper extends as far up as Dorogobush, where the depth is about 12 feet, and ...rafts are floated down from the higher reaches. About the town of Smolensk the breadth is 455 feet, 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 porogs, 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 1732 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 1780 at private expense; blastings were employed in 1798 and 1799 at various parts by Generals Beshand Devolan; in 1805 a canal was formed at Kaindatzki, and the channel rectified at Sursk; by 1807 a new canal was completed at Nenasitetz; in 1833 a passage was cleared through the Starokaindatzki Porog; and in the period from 1843 to 1853 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 1852 and 1857, 277 vessels and 674 rafts passed the rapids annually; and only 4 of these vessels came to grief. Within recent years the water in the river has been unusually low, but it is expected that the drairing 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 constitute 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 days in the year, at Ekaterinoslaff 274, and at Kherson from 280 to 285.
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