306 In philosophy the Poles (as the Slavs generally) have produced , but few remarkable names. Goluchowski, the brothers Andrew ! and John Suiadecki, the latter of whom has gained a reputation I almost European, Bronisiaw Trentowski, Karol Liebelt, and , Joseph Kremer deserve mention. August Cieszkowski has written j on philosophical and economic subjects. Moritz Straszewski, the present professor of philosophy at the university of Cracow, has also published some remarkable works. Mention has already been made of the poetess Elizabeth Druzbacka. Female writers are not very common among Slavo nic nations. Perhaps the most celebrated Polish authoress was Klementina Hoffmann, whose maiden name was Tanska, born at Warsaw in 1798. She married Karl Boromaus Hoil mann, and accompanied her husband, in 1831, to Passy near Paris, where she died in 1845. Her novels still enjoy great popularity in Poland. Of the poetesses of later times Gabriele Narzyssa Zmichowska (1825-1878), Maria llnicka, translator of Scott s Lord of tlic Isles, and Jadwiga Luszczewska may be mentioned. A poet of considerable merit is Adam Asnyk, born in 1838. In his poetry we seem to trace the steps between romanticism and the modern realistic school, such as we see in the Russian poet Nekrasoff. In some of the flights of his Muse he reminds us of Stowacki, in the melody of his verse of Zaleski. Besides showing talent as a poet, he has also written some good plays, as "The Jew " (Zid), Cola di Rienzi, and Kicjstut. Other living poets worthy of mention are Zagorski, Czerwienski, and Maria Konop- nicka, who has published two volumes of poems that have been very favourably noticed. Mention must also be made of Bahicki, [RUSSIAN. born at Cracow in 1837, and Narzymski (1839-1872), who was educated in France, but spent part of his short life in Cracow, author of some very popular tales. The four centres of Polish literature, which, in spite of the attempts which have been made to denationalize the country, is fairly active, are Cracow, Posen, Lemberg, and Warsaw. A few years ago a cheap edition of the leading Polish classics, well adapted for dissemination among the people, was published, under the title of Biblioteka Polska, at Cracow, which shows a great deal of vitality and is an interesting city. Not only are the pro fessors of its university some of the most eminent living Poles, but it has been chosen as a place of residence by many Polish literary men. The academy of sciences, founded in 1872, celebrated the bicentenary of the raising of the siege of A 7 ienna by Sobieski by publishing the valuable Acta Joannis III. Regis Polonise. Some good Polish works have been issued at Posen, but it is becoming extremely Germanized, and no part of the original kingdom of Poland has undergone so much change as this. At Lemberg, the capital of Austrian Galicia, there is an active Polish press. Here appeared the Monumenta Polonise, Historica of Bielowski, previously mentioned ; but Polish in this province has to struggle with the Red-Russian or Rutheuian, a language or dialect which for all practical purposes is the same as the Southern or Little Russian. At Warsaw, since the last insurrection, the university has become entirely Russianized, and its Transactions are published in Russian ; but Polish works of merit still issue from the press, among others the leading Polish literary journal, Biblioteka Warsxawska. (W. R. M.) POLAND, RUSSIAN. After the three dismemberments of the old kingdom, the name of Poland was chiefly re tained by the part of the divided territory annexed to Russia. Since the insurrection of 1863, however, the name " kingdom of Poland " has disappeared. Thencefor ward this portion of the Russian empire is referred to in official documents only as the " territory of the Vistula," and later on as the " Vistula governments." Nevertheless the" geographical position of Russian Poland, its ethno graphical features, its religion, and its traditions differ entiate it so widely from the remainder of the Russian empire that the name of Poland still survives in current use. The area of this territory is 49,157 square miles, and the population exceeds 7,300,000. See RUSSIA, and map accompanying that article. Projecting to the west of Russia in a wide semicircle between Prussia and Austria, it is bounded on the N. by the provinces of western and eastern Prussia, on the W. by Posen and Prussian Silesia, on the S. by Galicia, and on the E. by the Russian governments of Volhynia, Vilna, Grodno, and Kovno. It consists for the most part of an Surface, undulating plain, 300 to 450 feet above the sea, which joins the lowlands of Brandenburg in the west, and the great plain of central Russia in the east. A low swelling separates it from the Baltic Sea; while in the south it gradually rises to a range of plateaus which imperceptibly blend with the spurs of the Carpathians. These plateaus, with an average height of from 800 to 1000 feet, occupy all the southern part of Poland. They are mostly covered with beautiful forests of oak, beech, and lime, and are deeply cut by the valleys of rivers and numerous streams, some being narrow and craggy, and others broad, with gentle slopes and marshy bottoms. Narrow ravines inter sect them in all directions, and their surface often takes, especially in the east, the puszcza character, in other words, that of wild, unpassable, woody, and marshy tracts. In these tracts, which occupy the south-eastern corner of Poland, and are called Podlasie, the neighbourhood of the Polyesie of the Pripet is felt. The Vistula, which borders these plateaus on the south-west, at a height of 700 to 750 feet, has to penetrate them before finding its way to the great plain of Poland, and thence to the Baltic. Its valley divides the hilly tracts of Poland into two parts, the Lublin heights in the east, and the Sdomierz (Sandomir), or central, heights in the west. These last are diversified by several ridges which run east-south-east, parallel to the Beskides, the highest of them being those of the " Bald " or " Holy Cross Mountains " (<ysog6rski, or Swie,tokrzyski), two summits of which respectively reach 1813 and 1961 feet above the sea. Another short ridge, the Chcinski hills, follows the same direction along the Nida river, reaching 1135 feet at Zamkowa G6ra. South of the Nida, the Olkusz Hills, already blended with spurs of the Beskides, fill up the south-west corner of Poland, reaching 1473 feet at Podzarncze, and containing the chief mineral wealth of the country ; while a fourth range, from 1000 to 1300 feet high, runs north-west past Cze,stochovo, separating the Oder from the Warta. In the north, the plain of Poland is bordered by a flat and broad swelling, 600 to 700 feet above the sea, dotted with lakes, and recalling the lake regions of north-western Russia. Its gentle southern slopes occupy the northern parts of Poland, while the province of Suwatki, projecting as a spur towards the north-east, extends over the flat surface of this swelling. Wide tracts covered with sands, marshes, peat-bogs, ponds, and small lakes, among which the streams lazily flow from one marsh to another, the whole being covered with poor pine-forests and a scanty vegeta tion, with occasional patches of fertile soil such are the general characters of the northern border-region of the great plains of central Poland. These plains extend in a broad belt, 150 miles wide, from the Oder to the upper Niemen and the marshes of Pinsk, gently sloping towards the west, and slowly rising towards " the woods " of Volhynia and Grodno. Few hills raise their flat tops above the surface, the irregularities of which for the most part escape the eye, and can be detected only by levellings. As far as the eye can see, it perceives a plain ; and each hill, though but a few hundred feet above its surface, is called a " gora " (mountain). The rivers flow in broad, level valleys, only a few hundred or even only a few dozen feet lower than the watersheds ; they separate into many branches, enclosing islands, forming creeks, and covering wide tracts of land during inunda tions. Their basins, especially in the west, are mixed up with one another in the most intricate Avay, the whole bearing unmistakable traces of having been in recent geo
logical and partly in historical times the bottom of exten-