d with wild, thick
undergrowth. The chief river is the Vistula, which enters by the
southern boundary and flows first north, then northwest, skirting the
plateau region at a height of 700 feet, finally making its exit near
Thorn, thence on to the Baltic through East Prussia. Its valley divides
the hilly tracts into two parts: Lublin heights in the east and the
Sedomierz heights to the westward. Picture in your mind the great armies
approaching these ridges, the most notable of which is the Holy Cross
Mountains, rising peaks almost 2,000 feet above sea level.

The fighting forces in the northeast, where the plain slopes gradually
into the Suwalki Province, must pass over a country dotted with lakes
and lagoons, which farther on take on the character of marshes, stagnant
ponds, peat bogs, with small streams flowing lazily from one to the
other. Here and there are patches of stunted pine forests, with
occasional stretches of fertile, cultivated soil. Throughout this
section many rivers flow along broad, level valleys, separating into
various branches which form many islands and, during the rainy seasons,
flood the surrounding country.

Farther west the armies pass through broad valleys or basins, once the
beds of great lakes, whose rich, alluvial soil give forth abundant crops
of cereals. Here, too, flows the Niemen, 500 miles in length, watering a
basin 40,000 square miles in area and separating Poland from Lithuania.
It advances northward in a great, winding pathway, between limestone
hills covered with loam or amid forests, its banks rising to high
eminences in places, past ruined castles built in the Middle Ages. In
the yellowish soil along its banks grow rich crops of oats, buckwheat,
corn, and some rye. Naturally such a section would be thickly populated,
not only on account of the fertile soil, but because the Niemen, like
the Vistula, is one of the country's means of communication and
transportation. As many as 90,000 men earn their livelihoods in
navigating the steamers and freight barges passing up and down this
great waterway. At Yurburg the Niemen enters East Prussia on its way to
the Baltic.

CHAPTER XLII

THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF RUSSIAN POLAND

It is in the southern part of Russian Poland, among the foothills of the
Carpathians, that the armies come into possession of its mineral
resources, a fact which will have some influence on the German military
movements in this region. Up in the Kielce hil