At some distant day, when the memory alone remains of the brave deeds which were there performed, the IHHbandman will perhaps turn with the same astonishment on the rusty and broken weapon, or marble fragmen, him. unknown i n, which he has laid bare with his plough, as we did when we drove our oachcs over mosaic pavements, and by lon-.r-buricd hearths, and deep among graceful capitals and shafts of shining marble, which alone remain to tell of the luxury and magnificence of departed The Crimea is a peninsula of a quadrilateral shape, having a superficies of between 10,000 and 11,000 squan miles, lying between the latitudes 43 40' and 45 40' and in E. long. 34 30' to 35 30'.
It is surrounded on all sides by water. The Black Sea washes its shore on three sides, while the Sivashe, or Putrid Sea, and the Sea of Azof complete its boundaries. Although connected to a great continent by a very narrow isthmus, and encircled by water on all sides, yet its near neighbourhood to the mainland prevents its having a purely insular climate. It is by this peculiar position that we explain the great variation of the climate. The oscillations which take place between the two great climatic types the continental and insular impress themselves strongly on the attention, and are extremely difficult to reduce to fixed principles. The southern coast, bold, steep, and inhospitable, has been torn and split by volcanic action, and indented in various places into deep and narrow harbours.
The great force of that volcanic upheaving which elevated this coast is distinctly evidenced all along the shore. One great wave of burning rock extends from east to west for a hundred miles, lying close to the sea, and attaining an elevation of from 800 to 1000 feet. From its elevated crest the country slopes away north, in green grassy plains, which gradually melt into the wide expanse of the steppes. At Balaklava, conglomerate, mixed with coarse The French established their approaches and hatterics against the Quarantine bastion through the ruins of the ancient city of Kerson. PHYSICAL CIIA: i TIN: ( tt'il marble, lies heaped up in wild confusion, forming vast masses which overhang harbour, of this point, rocks. formed chiefly of tertiary limeand colouivd marbles, throw their vast hulk many hundred feet into the air, or lie like the Aia-daijli, or "Bear Mounta; n." in hi'uv detached masses far in the sea.
Jets of porphyry are often seen to fill the rents in the perpendicular face of these rocks, and at intervals the long dormant crate: net volcanoes are met with. To the westward of Balaklava, tow;.sonesus, basalt, amygdaloid, and porphyry are seen under the tertiary, or steppe limestone of the plateau next the sea. The calcareous composition of most of the mountains along the coast, is plainly betrayed by their rounded summits. The sub-1; k of the inland plains is limestone, chalk.. while in the valleys especially, the horizontal beds of these hitter strata are icolaily The precious metals are said to have been at one time found in the rocks of the coast; but recent investigation has failed t discover Tin- appearance of the country some short distance: the, sea is very curious, and striking.
Bold which look like sea capes left by the tide, occur in fivipirnt repetition, standing amidst encircling valleys, with their pel pendicular faces always to the South, and gradually the north. Such inland promont. m the ease with which they can be isolated and defended, have served at all periods of the.itural fortresses for the inhabitants, and havof the f.-mous "Mam t impregnable encampments. See Appendix A. The portion of the Crimea on which stand the "bloodstained " ruins of Sebastopol, and on which the allies were so long encamped, forms the lesser peninsula which projects from the greater at its south-west extremity. It is thus the lesser Chersonesus, or the Chersonesus Heracleotica of the ancients, deriving its name from Heraclea, the native city of the colonists, who built Kerson on its extremity.
It is bounded by the sea, the harbour of Sebastopol, the Tchemaya river, which empties itself into the head of that arm of the sea, and finally by a deep and broad valley which runs across the neck of the peninsula from the Tchernaya to Balaklava, This piece of country, which is of a triangular shape, measures some eleven miles from apex to base, and about nine miles in breadth, containing an area of about sixty square miles. It was at one time divided from the mainland by a wall built by the ancient colonists to protect themselves on the land side, and which barrier ran across the valley from the river Tchernaya to the harbour of Balaklava. Within this boundary an enormous city once stood, containing as many inhabitants as the British army which more lately pitched their tents on the site of its ruins.