Notwithstanding numerous scientific expeditions by which the exploration of various parts of the range began to be undertaken from the earlier portion of the 19th century, and notwithstanding partial accurate surveys and levellings and numerous geological researches made within the last thirty years, the real structure of the Urals, both orographical and geological, remains still imperfectly known. Even on maps otherwise good they are still very often represented as an unbroken chain, at least 1200 miles in length, running north and south from the Arctic Ocean to the sources of the river Ural. But every fresh addition to our knowledge has made it increasingly apparent that their real structure is much more complicated; and in view of recent explorations it becomes plain that the Urals consist of a series of several separate upheavals, some having a north-western direction and some a north-eastern, which reach their maximum heights along a zone which lies nearly north and south. They have thus some resemblance to the mountain-chains of Central Asia and Siberia,—which also have north-eastern and north-western directions, but are grouped in zones which, roughly speaking, lie west and east,—although in both cases chains running either along meridians or along parallels are, wherever they exist at all, only rare exceptions.

The composite nature of the Urals is best seen at the northern and southern extremities of the system, where the upheavals assume the character of distinct chains of mountains. The Pai-hoi Mountains are a ridge which, beginning at the head of Kara Bay, runs north-west, and is continued in the Island of Vaigatch and the southern island of Nova Zembla; and the Northern Urals, which join the Pai-hoi chain at the head of Kara Bay, run northeast and south-west as far south as 64° N. lat. In their middle portion the architecture of the Urals is complicated by the plateaus of middle Russia. The southern parts do not consist, as Humboldt supposed, of ramifications from main meridional chain, but of a series of parallel ranges running distinctly from north-east to south-west, as is plainly seen in the excellent maps recently published by the Russian Geological Committee. The structure of the separate parts of the Ural complexus is explained in some detail below.

I. The Pai-hoi or coast ridge (Samoyedic “stony ridge ”) is quite independent of the Urals proper, from which it is separated by a marshy tundra, some 30 miles wide. It has a distinct north-northwesterly and north-westerly trend along the shores of the Kara Sea; and, although it is cut by the Ugrian Strait, there is no doubt that it is continued in Vaigatch Island and Nova Zembla (q.v.). Its dome-shaped summits, which attain a height of about 1000 feet above the tundra (Vozaipai, 1312 feet), are completely bare of trees, and its stony crags are separated by broad marshy tundras. It is uninhabited

II. The Obdorsk or Northern Urals, which begin within a few miles of the head of Kara Bay (Konstantinoff Kamen, in 68° 30' N. lat., 1490 feet), and extend in a south-western direction as far as the 64th parallel, form a distinct ridge of mountains, stony and craggy, sloping steeply towards the south-east and gently towards the marshes of Russia. Its highest elevations are on the 66th and 67th parallels (3600 to 4370 feet). Sometimes the main chain has on the west two or three secondary ones, formed by the upheaval of sedimentary rocks, and it is towards the southern extremity of one of those that the highest peaks of the Urals occur (Sablya, 5407 feet, in 64° 47' N. lat., and Teplos-iz, 5540 feet, in 63° 55'). Dense coniferous forests, consisting chiefly of fir, pine, and larch, cover the slopes of the mountains and the narrow valleys; but, as the less hospitable latitudes are approached, every species except the larch gradually disappears and the upper limit of vegetation (2400 feet in the south) rapidly descends till it reaches the very base of the mountains towards the Arctic Circle, and forest vegetation disappears altogether about 65° lat. (67° in the plains of Russia and Siberia). These inhospitable hill-tracts, rising from the wide tundras which stretch for hundreds of miles to the west and east of the Urals, are quite uninhabited, save for a few hunters, who visit them in the summer in pursuit of the reindeer which here seek refuge from the mosquitoes of the lowlands.

III. Although usually reckoned to the Northern Urals, the section between the 64th and 61st parallels has again a wholly distinct character. It is represented on the maps as a girdle of chains, 20 to 35 miles in width, running north and south, and separated by long valleys. From the broad plateaus, or parmas, which stretch towards the north-west, it might be conjectured, however, that the structure is more complicated; and the recent researches by MM. Fedoroff and Ivanoff have, in fact, shown that what is described as the main chain (or, more correctly, the main water-parting) of the Urals is a succession of plateaus stretching in a north-westerly direction, with broad, flat, marshy valleys, and rising here and there into isolated dome-shaped flat summits, mostly under 3000 feet (Yang-tuny, 62° 43' N. lat., 4166 feet). The whole region, except the mountain summits, is densely clothed with coniferous forests, birch appearing only occasionally in the south, and even the Scotch pine only in a few valleys. This part of the range is also uninhabited.

IV. The Middle Urals, between 61° and 55° 30' N. lat., and about 80 miles in breadth, are the best known, as they contain the richest iron, copper, and gold mines (Bogosłovsk, Gorobła-godatsk, and Ekaterinburg Urals). The Deneshkin Kameñ in the north (4238 feet) and the Tara-tash in the south (2800 feet) may be considered as marking the limits of this section. Here the orographical structure is still more complicated, and the necessity of distinguishing the separate upheavals becomes still more apparent. In the north (61st to 60th parallel) there is a succession of chains with a distinct north-eastern trend; and it still remains an open question whether, for two degrees farther south, the whole of the gosłovsk Urals (5135 feet in the Konjakoff Kameñ, and from 3000 to 4000 feet in several other summits) do not consist of chains having the same direction. Farther south a broad swelling, which crosses northern Russia from the Kanin peninsula in the north to the sources of the river Petchora in the south-east, joins the Urals, and is continued into Asia by the plateau of the Tura and Isset rivers. To the south of the Katchkanar (2891 feet), i.e., from the 58th to the 56th parallel, therefore, the Urals assume the appearance of broad swellings from 1000 to 2000 feet in height, deeply ravined and with gentle slopes. These low and ravine-broken plateaus, the higher parts of which can be reached from Russia on a very gentle gradient, have been utilized for centuries as the chief highway to Siberia. They have none of the aspects of an alpine tract; and the traveller to Siberia cannot but experience a feeling of disappointment as his horses, still running at full speed, reach the marble column, inscribed “Europe” on one side and “Asia” on the other, which marks the water-parting (1180 feet) between the Russian and Siberian rivers. The eastern slope is steeper, but even there Ekaterinburg is only 350 feet below the water-parting. The valleys have a decidedly south-eastern direction, and such is also the course of the railway from Perm to Tyumeñ, as soon as it reaches the Siberian slope. The plateau-like swellings of this division terminate farther south in a depression, about 70 miles broad, stretching from north-west to south-east, where the waterparting has a height of only a few hundred feet. The Middle Urals are still densely forested, notwithstanding the immense quantities of timber and fuel which are constantly being taken from them. The vegetation is much more varied than in the north (birch, oak, lime, and maple), a rich undergrowth of bushes growing together with the conifers, and the banks of the rivers being adorned with the wild cherry (Prunus padus), poplar, willow, and alder. The valleys and lower slopes are covered with a thick sheet of rich humus and have become the site of large and wealthy villages. The mines also have given rise to a considerable population. The southern parts of the Middle Urals may be estimated to have a total agricultural and mining population of nearly 1,500,000.

V. The Southern Urals (from 55° 30' to 51° N. lat.) are now well known both orographically and geologically; and it appears that, instead of consisting of three chains of mountains radiating from Mount Yurma, as was formerly supposed, they consist of a series of three parallel chains running north-east and south-west, and therefore constitute a quite independent part of the Ural complexus. The Ural-tau proper is a low sinuous chain extending due south-west and hardly exceeding 2200 to 2800 feet in height. It slopes gently towards the north-west and abruptly towards the south-east, where several short and low chains (Ilmen, Irenty, &c. ) rise in the basins of the Mias and the Ui. In the west a chain separated from the Ural-tau by a longitudinal valley accompanies it throughout its entire length. This, although pierced by the rivers which rise in the longitudinal valley just mentioned (Ai, upper Byełaya), nevertheless rises to a much greater height than the Ural-tau. Its wild stony ridge has an altitude of 3375 feet in the Yurma, and 3950 feet in the Taganai; while the Urenga and Iremel Mountains exceed 3500 feet, and the peaks bearing these names reach 4013 and 5040 feet respectively. Farther west, another series of chains, parallel to the above, is described under various names (Zurat-kul, Zigałga, Nary); they reach nearly the same altitudes (Zigałga and Yaman-tau, 4880 and 5400 feet respectively). A number of other chains, also parallel and ranging from 2000 to 3000 feet, accompany them in the west. The whole system has thus the character of a swelling nearly 65 miles wide, intersected by a series of parallel chains, the results of as many foldings of the sedimentary rocks, which have undergone extensive denudation. Some of the chains are exceedingly craggy, and most of them are covered with masses of angular débris, sometimes concealed under thick sheets of marshy mosses. The gorges by which the rivers pierce the Devonian limestones on their way towards the lower terraces are most picturesque in the west, where the Urals assume an alpine character. The forests are no longer continuous; the gentle slopes of the hilly tracts are dotted with woods, mostly of deciduous trees, while the hollows contain rich pasture grounds. The thick layers of sedimentary rock which are lifted en masse on the western slope cover a wide area farther to the west in the shape of a plateau which already assumes the features of a steppe (see Ufa). The whole region, formerly the abode of Bashkirs, is rapidly being colonized by Russians.

Farther south, between the 53d and 51st parallels, the Ural-tau, still composed of crystalline rocks (diorite, serpentine, granite), continues in the same direction, but is covered as we advance by horizontal Cretaceous deposits and, except when deeply trenched by rivers, assumes the appearance of a plateau which hardly reaches 1500 feet. It is continued farther south-west (towards the Volga) under the name of Obschiy Syrt. A narrow longitudinal valley watered by the Sakmara (right-hand tributary of the Ural) separates the Ural-tau and the Guberlinsk Mountains (as the preceding tract is called) from the Irendyk chain, about 20 miles in width, which reaches 2300 feet in its higher parts. It is cut by the Ural river at Orsk and extends farther south-west towards the sources of the Ilek; while in the east a wide granitic plateau, with only a few remainders of its former Devonian and Carboniferous covering, some 130 miles broad and nearly 1000 feet high, lies about the sources of the Siberian rivers, and is known by such local names as Kara-Edyr-tau, Djabik-Karagai, and the like.

VI. As a rule the Urals are not shown on maps to the south of the great bend of the Ural river, where quite independent ranges of hills, or flat swellings, are represented (Jaman-tau, Mugojar Hills). It appears, however, from recent exploration that the Mugojar Hills may safely be regarded as a farther continuation of the upheavals which constitute the Urals. The Cretaceous plateau north of the Ural river is continued to the south of it; it again assumes a mountainous character in the Jaman-tau (50° N. lat.) and joins the Mugojar Hills, which consist of diorites and crystalline slates and reach their maximum in the Airuk Mountain (about 1000 feet). A range of heights connects the Mugojar Hills with the Ust-Urt plateau (see Transcaspian Region). It is hardly necessary to say that these plateaus and flat hills to the south of the river Ural have all the characters of the Ciscaspian and Transcaspian steppes.

Geology.— Whatever the variety of the orographically independent systems of mountains and plateaus embodied under the general name of Urals, a certain “geotectonic” similarity may be observed in all of them. Denudation has been active on so grand a scale that entire strata of sedimentary deposits have been removed from their original positions and scattered in the form of debris to distances of more than 100 miles on both sides of the Urals, so as considerably to reduce their former height. But, if this agency be taken into account, the Urals seem to come under the category of what the Germans call asymmetric Faltengebirge, and thus exhibit a great resemblance to the western Alps. A broad strip of granites, syenites, diorites, and porphyries, with their subordinate gneisses and crystalline slates, belonging to the Laurentian and Huronian systems, constitutes the main axis of upheaval, and this axis is invariably situated in the eastern part of the mountain region. The asymmetry thus resulting is the more pronounced as the Azoic rocks are mostly covered directly by Tertiary and Quaternary deposits on their Siberian slope; while towards the west they are covered with vast layers of Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, and Triassic rocks, which are manifoldly folded so as to constitute a series of chains parallel to the main axis and mostly lifted to much greater heights than the older Azoic rocks.

The crystalline rocks which must have constituted the primary ridges mostly appear in the shape of plateaus, water-and glacier-worn, with undulating surfaces; and the hills which rise above the plateaus are mostly dome-shaped and are seldom marked by the craggy characters which are met with in the limestone and sandstone mountains of the subsequent formations. Masses of angular débris and great blocks cover both the plateaus and the mountains; and only a very few traces of the sediments which may have partially covered the Azoic crystalline rocks are sporadically met with. But, as a rule, they have remained a continent since the Huronian epoch. As for the Primary and Secondary deposits of the western slope, they are represented by Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permio-Carboniferous, Permian, and Triassic deposits, attaining great thicknesses and following one another in succession so as to appear on the surface as strips lying parallel to the Urals. The strip occupied by the Silurian quartzites, limestones, and slates is narrow, even in its northern portion. Farther south it disappears, and the deposits which formerly were assigned to the Silurian period are now considered to be mostly Devonian. These latter, mostly littoral in character and much resembling those of the Eifel and Belgium, occupy wide areas to the west of the main axis of the Urals. Their lower parts are much metamorphosed. The Carboniferous deposits,—coal-bearing in the Middle and Southern Urals, —although appearing at the surface only as a narrow strip in the west Urals, occupy an extensive area, but are concealed by the largely developed Permian deposits, and that series of sediments which must be considered as intermediate between the Carboniferous and the Permian. These latter, described as “Permo-Carbon” by Russian and German geologists, are largely developed in the west Urals. Their fossils belong to a fauna intermediate between the Carboniferous and the Permian, which was formerly known as that of Artinsk; but since two more series of the same intermediate character have been described the whole has been brought under the general name of Permio-Carboniferous deposits. The Permian deposits cover a wide zone all along the western slope of the Urals from north to south, and are most important on account of their copper ores, salt-beds, and salt-springs. They are also covered with variegated marls which are almost quite destitute of fossil organisms, so that their age is not yet quite settled. Some Russian geologists continue to consider them as Permian, while the majority of recent explorers assign them to the Triassic age.

The glaciation of the Urals is still a debated question. Even those geologists who now acknowledge that the Scandinavian icesheet covered middle Russia hesitate to admit the existence of an ice-cap covering the Middle and Southern Urals,—the want of polished and striated rocks being the chief argument for the negative. But, if the disintegrated state of the rocks which are best fitted to maintain glacial polishing and striation, their thick coverings of débris, and the action of lichens and mosses in obliterating the traces of glaciation be taken into account, as also the prevalence of erratic blocks, and the character of the deposits filling up the valleys, it must be regarded as most probable that the Urals, too, must soon be included within the limits of former glaciation (as has been already done by a few explorers, such as Polyakoff). The Lacustrine (Post-Glacial) deposits are widely spread all over the slopes of the Urals. Immense marshes, which have recently emerged, in the north, and numberless lakes in the south, which are but small in comparison with their size at a recent period, as also Lacustrine deposits in the valleys, all go to show that during the Lacustrine period the Urals were as much dotted with lakes as Finland is at the present time.

Climatic, Geo-Botanical, and Geo-Zoological Importance.— The importance of the Urals as a climatic and geo-botanical boundary can no longer be regarded as very great. Most European species of plants freely cross the Urals into Siberia, and several Siberian species travel across them into northern Russia. But, being a zone of hilly tracts extending from north to south in a meridional direction, the Ural Mountains necessarily exercise a powerful influence in driving a colder northern climate, as well as a northern flora and fauna, farther towards the south along their axis. The harshness of the climate at the meteorological stations of Bogo-stovsk, Zlatoust, and Ekaterinburg is not owing merely to their elevation a few hundred feet above sea-level. Even if reduced to sea-level, the average temperatures of the Ural meteorological stations are such as to produce a local deflexion of the isotherms towards the south. The same is true with regard to the limits of distribution of vegetable and animal species. It has been already stated that the northern limits of tree-vegetation descend towards more southern latitudes on the Northern Urals and in the vicinity of the chain. The same is true with regard to many other species of plants. In like manner several Arctic species of animals come much farther south than they might otherwise have done: the reindeer, for instance, is met with as far south as the 52d parallel. The Southern Urals introduce amidst the Ciscaspian steppes the forest vegetation, flora, and fauna of middle Russia.

In the distribution of the races of mankind the Urals have also played an important part. To the present day the Northern Urals are the abodes of Finnish stems (Samoyedes, Zyrians, Voguls, and Permians) who have been driven from their...

In its morphology Ural-Altaic belongs to the agglutinating order of speech, differing from other languages of this order chiefly in the exclusive use of suffixes attached to the unmodified root, and partly blended with it by the principle of progressive vowel harmony, in virtue of which the vowels of all the suffixes are assimilated to that of the root. Thus the typical formula is R + r + r + r, &c., where R is the root, always placed first, and r, r, r . . . the successive postfixed relational elements, whose vowels conform by certain subtle laws of euphony to that of the root, which never changes. These suffixes differ also from the case and verbal endings of true inflecting languages (Aryan, Semitic) in their slighter fusion with the root, with which they are rather mechanically united (agglutinated) than chemically fused into a term in which root and relational element are no longer separable. Hence it is that the roots, which in Aryan are generally obscured, blurred, often even changed past the possibility of identification, in Ural-Altaic are always in evidence, unaffected by the addition of any number of formative particles, and controlling the whole formation of the word. For instance, the infinitive element mak of the Osmanli yaz-mak = to write becomes mek in sev-mek = to love (vowel harmony), and shifts its place in sev-il-mek = to be loved (imperfect fusion with the root), while the root itself remains unchanged as to form and position in sev-ish-il-mek = to be impelled to love, or in any other possible combination with suffixed elements. The facility with which particles are in this way tacked on produces an exuberance, especially of verbal forms, which in Osmanli, Finnish, Magyar, Tungus, and Mordvinian may be said to run riot. This is particularly the case when the numerous modal forms become further complicated by incorporating the direct pronominal object, as in the Magyar varjak = they await him, and the Mordvinian palasa = I embrace him. Thus arise endless verbal combinations, reckoned in Turki at nearly 30,000, and past counting in the Ugrian group.

Another marked peculiarity of the Ural-Altaic, at least as compared with the inflecting orders of speech, is weak subjectivity, the subject or agent being slightly, the object of the action strongly accentuated, so that “it was done by him” becomes “it was done with him, through him, or in his place” (apud eum). From this feature, which seems to be characteristic of all the branches, there follow some important consequences, such as a great preponderance of locative forms in the declension,—the nominative, and often even the possessive, being expressed by no special suffix. Hence also the object normally precedes the subject, while the idea of possession (to have) is almost everywhere replaced by that of being (to be), so that, even in the highly developed Osmanli, “I have no money” becomes “money-to-me not-is” (Akchehím yok-dür). In fact the verb is not clearly differentiated from the noun, so that the conjugation is mainly participial, being effected by agglutinating pronominal, modal, temporal, negative, passive, causative, reciprocal, reflexive, and other suffixes to nominal roots or gerunds: I write = writing-to-me-is. Owing to this confusion of noun and verb, the same suffixes are readily attached indifferently to both, as in the Osmanli ján = soul, ján-ler = souls, and yázár = he will write, yázár-ler = they will write. So also, by assimilation, the Yakut kötördör kötöllör = the birds fly (from root kot = flying), where kötöl stands for kötör, and dör for lör, the Osmanli ler, or suffix of plurality.

But, notwithstanding this wealth of nominal or verbal forms, there is a great dearth of general relational elements, such as the relative pronoun, grammatical gender, degrees of comparison, conjunctions, and even postpositions. Byrne’s remark, made in reference to Tungus, that “there is a great scarcity of elements of relation, very few conjunctions, and no true postpositions, except those which are given in the declension of the noun,” is mainly true of the whole family, in which nouns constantly do duty for formative suffixes. Thus nearly all the Ostiak postpositions are nouns which take the possessive suffix and govern other nouns in the genitive, precisely as in the Hindi: ādmī-kī-tărăf (men) găyā = man-of-direction (in) I went = I went towards the man, where the so-called postposition tărăf, being a feminine noun = direction, requires the preceding possessive particle to be also feminine (kī for kē).

As there are thus only two classes of words,—the roots, which always remain roots, and the suffixes, which always remain suffixes,—it follows that there can be no true composition or word-building, but only derivation. Even the numerous Magyar nominal and adjectival compounds are not true compounds, but merely two words in juxtaposition, unconnected by vowel harmony and liable to be separated in construction by intervening particles. Thus in aran-sinü = gold-colour = golden, the first part aran receives the particle of comparison, the second remaining unchanged, as if we were to say “gold-er-colour” for “more golden”; and ata-fi = relative becomes ata-m-fi-a = my relative, with intrusion of the pronominal m = my.

But, while these salient features are common, or nearly common, to all, it is not to be supposed that the various groups otherwise present any very close uniformity of structure or vocabulary. Excluding the doubtful members, the relationship between the several branches is far less intimate than between the various divisions of the Semitic and even of the Aryan family, so that, great as is, for instance, the gap between English and Sanskrit, that between Lapp and Manchu is still greater.

After the labours of Castrén, Csink, Gabelentz, Schmidt, Böhtlingk, Zenker, Almqvist, Radloff, Munkacsi-Berat, and especially Winkler, their genetic affinity can no longer be seriously doubted. But the order of their genetic descent from a presumed common organic Ural-Altaic language is a question presenting even greater difficulties than the analogous Aryan problem. The reason is, not only because these groups are spread over a far wider range, but because the dispersion from a common centre took place at a time when the organic speech was still in a very low state of development. Hence the various groups, starting with little more than a common first germ, sufficient, however, to give a uniform direction to their subsequent evolution, have largely diverged from each other during their independent development since the remotest prehistoric times. Hence also, while the Aryan as now known to us represents a descending line of evolution from the synthetic to the analytic state, the Ural-Altaic represents on the contrary an upward growth, ranging from the crudest syntactical arrangements in Manchu to a highly agglutinating but not true inflecting state in Finnish. No doubt Manchu also, like its congeners, had formerly possessive affixes and personal elements, lost probably through Chinese influences; but it can never have possessed the surprisingly rich and even superabundant relational forms so characteristic of Magyar, Finn, Osmanli, and other western branches. As regards the mutual relations of all the groups, little more can now be said than that they fall naturally into two main divisions—Mongolo-Turkic and Finno-Ugro-Samoyedo-Tungusic—according to the several methods of employing the auxiliary elements. Certainly Turkic lies much closer to Mongolic than it does to Samoyedic and Tungusic, while Finno-Ugric seems to occupy an intermediate position between Turkic and Samoyedic, agreeing chiefly in its roots with the former, in its suffixes with the latter. Finno-Ugric must have separated much earlier, Mongolic much later, from the common connexion, and the latter, which has still more than half its roots and numerous forms in common with Turkic, appears on the whole to be the most typical member of the family. Hence many Turkic forms and words can be explained only by reference to Mongolic, which has at the same time numerous relations to Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic that have been lost in Turkic and Tungusic. It may therefore be concluded that the Finno-Ugric migrations to the north and west and the Tungusic to the east had been completed while the Turkic and Mongolic tribes were still dwelling side by side on the Altai steppes, the probable cradle of the Ural-Altaic peoples.

How profoundly the several groups differ one from the other even in their structure is evident from the fact that such assumed universal features as unchangeable roots and vowel harmony are subject to numerous exceptions, often spread over wide areas. Not only is assimilation of final consonants very common, as in the Osmanli bulun-mαk for the Uigur bulul-mαk, but the root vowel itself is frequently subject to umlaut through the influence of suffixed vowels, as in the Aryan family. Thus in the Surgut dialect of Ostiak the long vowels of nominal stems become modified before the possessive suffix, ā and ē to ī and ō to ū (Castrén). It is still more remarkable to find that the eastern (Yenisei) Ostiak has even developed verbal forms analogous to the Teutonic strong conjugation, the presents tabāq', abbatag'an, and datpaq' becoming in the past tobāq', abbatog'an, and datpiyaq' respectively; so also taig, tōrg, and tārg, present, past, and imperative, are highly suggestive of Teutonic inflexion, but more probably are due to Tibetan influences. In the same dialects many nouns form their plurals either by modifying the root vowel, in combination with a suffixed element, or by modification alone, the suffix having disappeared, as in the English foot—feet, goose—geese. So also vowel harmony, highly developed in Finnish, Magyar, and Osmanli, and of which two distinct forms occur in Yakutic, scarcely exists at all in Tchere-missian, Votyak, and the Revel dialect of Esthonian, while in Mordvinian and Siryenian, not the whole word, but the final vowels alone are harmonized. The unassimilated Uiguric kilur-im answers to the Osmanli kilur-um, while in Manchu the concordance is neglected, especially when two consonants intervene between the root and the suffixed vowels. But too much weight should not be attached to the phenomenon of vowel harmony, which is of comparatively recent origin, as shown in the oldest Magyar texts of the 12th century, which abound in such discordances as halál-nek, tiszta-seg, for the modern halál·nak, tiszta-sag. It clearly did not exist in the organic Ural-Altaic speech, but was independently developed by the different branches on different lines after the dispersion, its origin being due to the natural tendency to merge root and suffix in one harmonious whole. The principle being thus of a purely psychological character, and necessarily an aftergrowth, it is not surprising to find no traces of it in the oldest and even in the later Accad texts, as seen by comparing the old idi bar-mun-sib with the more recent igi mun-sib-bar.

This progressive vocalic harmony has been compared to a sort of progressive umlaut, in which the suffixed vowels are brought by assimilation into harmony with those of the root All vowels are broadly divided into two categories, the guttural or hard and the [)alatal or weak, the principle requiring that, if the root vowel be hard, the suffixed must also be hard, and vice versa. But in some of the groups there is an intermediate class of “neutral” vowels, which do not require to be harmonized, being indifferent to either category. In accordance with these general principles the vowels in some of the leading members of the Altaic family are thus classified by L. Adam— [table]

A close analogy to this law is presented by the Irish rule of “broad to broad” and “slender to slender,” according to which under certain conditions a broad (a , o, u) must be followed in the next syllable by a broad, and a slender (e , i ) by a slender. Obvious parallelisms are also such forms in Latin as annus, perennis, ars, iners, lego, diligo, where, however, the root vowel is modified by the affix, not the affix by the root. But such instances suffice to show that the harmonic principle is not peculiar to the Ural-Altaic, but only more systematically developed in that than in most other linguistic families.

This is not the place to discuss the vexed question of the relation of the Babylonian Accad and Sumirian, or of the Etruscan, with the Ural-Altaic linguistic stock. It must therefore suffice to state in a general way that, according to the latest views, both of those long extinct languages were really branches either of the Finno-Ugric or of the Turko-Mongolic division of that family. In reply to the objection that Sumirian was a prefix language, it is pointed out that Neo-Sumirian, extinct some 1600 years before the Christian era, had already become postfixing, so that the nin-gar of the oldest answers to the garra-bi of the later texts, from root gar =to make. Nevertheless the point is far from settled, as may be judged from the fact that such specialists as Dr Zimmern and Dr Hommel are still at issue on the fundamental question of the Ural-Altaic affinities of Accad and Sumirian. The position of Etruscan is much the same, the main outcome of recent controversy being that this primitive Italian language can scarcely have been a member of the Aryan, whatever its relationship to the Finno-Tataric family.

Regarding the Japanese and Corean languages, it may be remarked that Winkler agrees with Boiler in unhesitatingly including the former, while doubtfully excluding the latter from this connexion. On the other hand, W. G. Aston (Journ. Roy. Asiat. Soc., August 1879) considers that both are as nearly related to one another as English and Sanskrit. The probability therefore is that Japanese and Corean are aberrant branches of the Ural-Altaic family, and that they separated at long intervals from the parent stock and at such remote periods that their affinities can no longer be clearly traced.

Bibliography.— Besides the references given above, the chief general treatises on Ural-Altaic philology are—Kellgren, Die Grundzüge der finnischen Sprachen mit Rücksicht auf die Ural-Altaischen Sprachstämme, Berlin, 1847; Castrén, Ueber die Ursitze des finnischen Volkes, Helsingfors, 1849; Id., Syrjaen. Gram., Samojed. Gram., and numerous other comparative grammars, dictionaries, and general treatises, chiefly on the Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic groups; W. Thomsen, Ueber den Einfluss der germanischen Sprachen auf die Finnisch-Lappischen (Germ. trans. by Sievers, Halle, 1870—a classical work); Abel Rémusat, Recherches sur les Langues Tartares, Paris, 1820; L. Adam, Gram. de la Langue Mandchoue, Paris, 1872, and Gram. de la L. Tongouse, Paris, 1874; Böhtlingk, Die Sprache der Jakuten, St Petersburg, 1851; Radloff, Volksliteratur der türkischen Stämme Sud-Sibiriens, St Petersburg, 1872, and “Remarks on the Codex Comanicus,” Bull. St Petersb. Acad. Sc., xxxi., No. 1; Zenker, Gram. der türkischen-tatarischen Sprachen; Schmidt, Mongol. Gram. ; Gabelentz, Gram. Mandchoue, Altenburg, 1833; Csink, Hung. Gram., London, 1853; and Vambéry, Das Türkenvolk, Leipsic, 1885, and Uigurische Sprach-Monumente u. das Kudatku Bilik, Innsbruck, 1870. For further particulars relating to the affinities and characteristics of the various branches, and of their associated members, see the articles Finland (vol. ix. p. 219), Hungary (vol. xii. p. 374), Russia (vol. xxi. p. 79), Turks (vol. xxiii. p. 661), Mongols (vol. xvi. p. 750), and Siberia (vol. xxii. p. 8).

Uralsk is watered by the Ural, which rises in Orenburg at a height of 2100 feet above sea-level, but soon descends to the lowlands, where it flows south, west, and south, entering the Caspian after a course of 800 miles. Its chief tributaries, the Sakmara, the Or, and the Ilek, are in the north; along its lower course the Great and Little Uzeñs and many small streams on the left bank fail to join the main river, being lost in lakes before reaching it. The Emba, which has its course in the north of the Ust-Urt plateau, reaches the Caspian by a series of shallow lagoons, which were navigable in the 18th century.

The climate is influenced by the Central Asian steppes. A cold and dry winter is succeeded by a hot and still drier summer, during which the grass, and sometimes all the crops, are destroyed by the burning heat. Uralsk, although lying wholly to the south of 51° 30' N. lat., has the same average yearly temperature as Moscow and south Finland (39° ∙5); its January is colder than that of north Finland (3°), while July averages 73°

The character of the vegetation can be easily inferred from the above. The prairies and forest tracts of the north soon disappear, their place being taken by the vegetation of the south Russian steppes. This has, however, to struggle with the much poorer vegetation, Central Asian in character, of the sandy regions to the west of the lower Ural, and the saliniferous vegetation of the clayey deserts of the Emba. The Ust-Urt has herbaceous steppes, where the want of irrigation and rain destroys all vegetation by the end of summer. Wide belts of rushes grow along the banks of the rivers and on the shores of the Caspian.

The population of the province, 525,330 in 1883, is made up of three different elements,—Ural Cossacks, who constitute about one-fifth, and numbered nearly 90,000 in 1879, some 15,000 Russian peasants, and Kirghiz. Of these 405,000 are still nomads. The Kirghiz are almost entirely dependent on cattle-breeding, and before the outbreak of the murrain of 1879 were reckoned to have 429,500 horses, 221,800 head of cattle, 1,411,000 sheep, and 175,000 camels. From that epidemic the Russians lost two-thirds of their horses and one-third of their other stock, whilst the Khirgiz lost more than three-fourths of both horses and cattle. The Ural Cossacks, descendants of those independent communities of free settlers and Raskolniks who are so often mentioned in Russian history under the name of Yaik Cossacks, owing to their unwillingness to submit to the rule of the czars, are fine representatives of the Great Russian race, though not without some admixture of Tartar and Kalmuck blood. Their chief occupations are cattle-breeding and fishing, the latter a most important source of income. The rich fisheries in the Ural and the Caspian are the property of the community as a whole (the voisko), and are subdivided according to the needs and working powers of the separate villages. They give employment to about 7000 Cossacks and 2000 hired labourers. There are also fisheries in the Emba. Walrus-hunting is also engaged in. Agriculture was first introduced between 1830 and 1840; but now more than 300,000 cwts. of wheat are exported annually. Nearly 130,000 cwts. of salt are obtained from the lakes every year. The manufactures of the province, which possesses a few steam flour-mills and a number of tanneries and tallow-melting works, are unimportant. Trade by barter is extensively carried on with the Kirghiz. Fish, corn, cattle, hides, tallow, and the like are exported, while manufactured wares are imported to the value of about £1,500,000 per annum.

Uralsk is divided into four districts, the chief towns of which are— Uralsk (20,680 inhabitants in 1879), Kalmykoff (1510), Gurieff at the mouth of the Ural (4380), and Temirsk, a small port, now the administrative centre of the district of Embinsk. Several villages have populations of from 2000 to 5000 each.

History.— In the first half of the 16th century Uralsk was occupied by the Nogai horde, a remnant of the Golden Horde, which retired there after the fall of Astrakhan and Kazan; the khans resided at Saraitchik on the Ural. At the same time the lower parts of the Ural were occupied by Russian runaway serfs and tree Cossacks who did not recognize the authority of Moscow. They took Saraitchik in 1560 and formed an independent community, like the sitch of the Zaporog Cossacks. The Moscow princes, recognizing the importance of these military settlements, tried to win their allegiance by the grant of various privileges. But, when they attempted to bring them under the centralized rale of the empire and prosecuted them for nonconformity, the Cossacks revolted, first under Razin, and afterwards under Pugatcheff. After the latter rising, the name of Ural was officially given to the Yaik river and the Yaik Cossacks. The disbanding of their artillery, the planting of Russian garrisons within the domains of the voisko, and the interference of Russian officials in their interior organization during the 19th century occasioned a series of smaller outbreaks, the latest of which, in 1874, against the new law of military service, resulted in the deportation of 2500 Cossacks, with their families, to Turkestan.

URALSK, capital of the above province, is situated on the upper Ural, at its confluence with the Tchagan, 1095 miles south-east from Moscow. The town is well built, with regular streets; among its prominent buildings are the theatre, the club, and two gymnasiums; and it is beautified by numerous gardens. The scientific society issues publications of great value. There is a very brisk trade in fish, cattle, hides, tallow, grain (exported), and in manufactured goods (imported). The population in 1879 was 20,680.