WURST, or Verft, a Russian measure equal to 3500 English feet. A degree of a great circle of the earth contains about 124 wersts and a half.

WERTURIAN or URALIAN Mountains, a famous chain of mountains forming part of the boundary of Asia. It begins distinctly (for it may be traced undoubtedly farther south) near the town of Kungur, in the government of Kafan, in latitude 57° 20'; runs north, and ends opposite to the Waygatz strait, and rises again in the isle of Nova Zemlya. The Russians also call this range Semennoi Poias, or, the girdle-of-the-world; from a supposition that it encircled the universe. These were the Riphhei montes: Pars mundi damnata a natura rerum, et denfa merfa caligine*; of which only the southern part was known to the ancients, and that to little as Hip. Nat. to give rise to numberless fables. Beyond these were placed the happy Hyperborei, a fiction most beautifully related by Pomponius Mela. Moderns have not been behind-hand in exaggerating several circumstances relative to these noted hills. Ybrand Ides, who crossed them in his embassy to China, affirms that they are 5000 toises or fathoms high; others, that they are covered with eternal snow. The last may be true in their more northern parts; but in the usual passages over them, they are free from it three or four months.

The heights of part of this chain have been taken by M. l'Abbé d'Auteuche: who, with many assurances of his accuracy, says, that the height of the mountain Kyria near Solikamska, in latitude 60°, does not exceed 471 toises from the level of the sea, or 286 from the ground on which it stands. But, according to M. Gmelin, the mountain Pauda is much higher, being 752 toises above the sea. From Petersburgh to this chain is a vast plain, mixed with certain elevations or platforms, like islands in the midst of an ocean. The eastern side descends gradually to a great distance into the wooded and morass Siberia, which forms an im- Wesley, from all the great rivers taking their rise on that side, some at the amazing distance of latitude 46°; and, after a course of above 27 degrees, falling into the Frozen ocean, in latitude 73° 30′. The Yalik alone, which rises near the southern part of the eastern side, takes a southern direction, and drops into the Caspian sea. The Dvina, the Peczora, and a few other rivers in European Russia, shew the inclined plane of that part. All of them run to the northern sea; but their course is comparatively short. Another inclination directs the Dnieper and the Don into the Euxine, and the vast Volga into the Caspian sea.