In the 1920s, ethnologist Pyotr Petrovich Ivanov has conducted a major excavation that uncovered evidence of the culture of Mordvins that inhibited the area in the first millennium CE.

miles, and consisted of an undulating plain intersected by deep ravines and broad valleys, ranging 450 to 800 ft. above sea-level.

Cretaceous and Jurassic deposits, thickly covered with boulder-clay and loess, were widely spread over its surface, concealing the underlying Devonian and Carboniferous strata.

The mineral waters of Lipetsk, similar to those of Franzensbad in their alkaline elements, and chalybeate like those of Pyrmont and Spa, are well known in Russia.

The Oka touches the north-west corner of the region, but its tributaries, the Moksha and the Tsna, are important channels of traffic.

As a whole, it is only in the north that Tambov is well drained; in the south, which is exposed to the dry south-east winds, the want of moisture is much felt, especially in the district of Borisoglyebsk.

The soil is fertile throughout; in the north it is clayey and sometimes sandy, but the rest of the government was covered with a sheet, 2 to 3 feet thick, of black earth.