steppe (step)

[F. D. G. Dan. steppe = Sw. stepp, A more or le level tract devoid of trees: a name given to certain parts of European and Asiatic Ru ia, of which the most characteristic feature is the absence of forests. The word steppe was introduced into the scientific literature of west ern Europe by Humboldt, in whose "Ansichten der Natur" a work widely circulated, and translated into all the most important European languages - there is a chapter entitled "Steppen und Wüsten" ( Steppes and Deserts). The steppe region in Europe begins on the borders of land, and extends through northern Germany-where such lands are called Heiden (heaths) - into Ru ia in Europe, and beyond the Ural Mountains almost to the Pacific Ocean, for a distance of about 4,500 miles. Although the steppes are in general characterized by the lack of an arboreal and the presence of a gra y vegetation, and by a pretty uniformly level surface, there are many breaks in this botanical and topographical monotony, in the form of forests extending along the streams, large patches of dense and sometimes tall shrubbery, lakes (both fresh and saline), rolling hills, ridges, barren sands, and patches covered with saline efflorescence. The general character of the region is pastoral, and the population (especially of the Asiatic steppes) nomadic; but all this has been to a considerable extent interfered with by the spread of Ru ian civilization and the domination of Ru ian authority. The Ru ian and Siberian steppes pa southward into the deserts of central Asia, and northward into the tundra region of the extreme north. Humboldt, in the work named above, occasionally uses the term steppe in describing the pampas and llanos of South America, and the plains, prairies, and barrens of the northern division of the New World, and his example has been followed to a certain extent by other physical geographers writing in regard to America; but the word steppe is nowhere in popular use except as to places where Ru ian is the dominating language. Some of the Asiatic Steppes are gra y plains; others are covered with succulent, evergreen, articulated soda plants: many glisten from a distance with flakes of exuded salt which cover the clayey soil, not unlike in appearance to fresh fallen snow. Humboldt , Aspects of Nature (trans.). Steppe murrain, rinderpest.