The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

TIIE CRIMEA. 445and according to the Tatars of the neighbourhood the violence of the gas explosionsis in inverse ratio with that of the sea. The rougher the water, the calmer thevolcanoes.Flora axd Fauna.— Climate.But the Crimean highlands differ in their vegetation even more than in otherrespects from the rest of Eussia. The argillaceous soil of the steppes borderingon the Swash produces nothing but tufts of coarse grass, which in two or threemonths crumbles to dust. But even the northern slopes of the hills facing thebare steppe are already covered with pasture, clumps of poplars, orchards, thicketsof divers species of trees, while every valley is watered with purling streams,which are diverted into the gardens to irrigate a magnificent flora. The uplandforests have not all yet been destroyed, and here and there are still met groves ofglorious beech-trees, recalling the forests of Central Europe and Normandy.Here are intermingled all the large trees of temperate Europe—the oak, beech,hornbeam, linden, elm, ash, sorb, aspen, willow, hawthorn, wild cherry, plum,crab apple. On the southern slopes the most common tree is the sea pine, butlower down the vegetation is quite Italian. Here flourish the laurel, fig, pomegranate,olive, arbutus, while the wild vine everywhere twines round the stems ofthe larger trees. Altogether the number of species growing in this highlandregion exceeds those of all the rest of Eussia.Too limited to shelter a numerous fauna, the Crimea is much less rich inanimal than in vegetable species. Except the hare, fox, and small rodents, wildquadrupeds are rare, and many found elsewhere in Eussia are wanting altogether.But all the domestic animals of the Russian steppes have been introduced, togetherwith the two-humped camel of Central Asia. The quail appears in spring, andmigrates southwards in autumn, as on the coast of Erovence. Aquatic birds,reptiles, insects, and marine molluscs are rare, though there is a highly prizedspecies of oyster.The proportion of salt contained in the water of the Black Sea,17 or IS pjrts to 1,000, { s the smallest compatible with the presence of thismollusc.The abundance of other marine species may be judged from the fact thatin December, 1869, Balaklava Bay was completely choked with a shoal of anchovypursued by dolphins to this retreat, where they soon formed a solid mass, rising inmany places above the surface.The mild cliir te of the Crimea, where the glass seldom falls below freezingpoint, even in the towns on the northern slopes, could not fail to attract immigrantsto the peninsula, whose geographical position secured to them special advantages.Lying beyond the mainland, while keeping open its communications with theinterior, it meets commerce, so to say, half-way, opening its ports to all the greattrade routes.For aggressive and defensive purposes it also occupies an exceptionalposition in the centre of the Euxine. By closing the isthmus connecting it withthe continent, it may even be constituted a veritable fortress, and such is said tobe the meaning of the name of Krim, bestowed on it by the Tatars towards theend of the thirteenth centurv.