heat and cold, and the snow in some seasons covers the ground for a considerable time in winter. The mountains themselves occupy a large space, and rise to a height of from 1000 to 5000 feet. They are generally flattopped or dome-shaped, and hold within their range high elevated plains called Yailas. Their summits reveal granite and other primitive rocks, and on their northern sides lie, like a mantle, the Steppes, which constitute all the northern portion, and nearly two-thirds of the area, of the whole peninsula.
These steppes gradually incline downwards towards the north, and hence received from the later Greeks the name of "ta climata," or the inclines." The following are the principal rivers :-Eastward, the Salghír, the Bulganak, the three Andols, the Tchoroksou, the Soubashi, and the Karagos, which flow into the Shiváshe or great lagoon on the east, improperly called the Putrid Sea; and on the westward, the western Bulganak, the Alma, the Katcha, and the Belbek, which discharge their waters into the long open bay at the head of which stands Eupatoria.
The peninsula of the Crimea was known to the Greeks under the name of the Taurica Chersonesus, and in the middle ages was called Gothia. It is now called either the Tauride (a version of its first appellation), or more commonly Crimea, from the famous city of Eski Krim, near Theodosia, which was built by the Tatars in the thirteenth century, and is now a ruin.
This name appears for the first time in Theophanes, page 316. He says, "Justinian remembering the plot against him of the Chersonites, the Bosphorians, and the inhabitants of the other Klimata." Some authors supposed it to refer, to the southern coast, but Dubois applies it to the northern slopes of the Tauric chain (the same country which was called Doru by the earlier writers), principally from the following passage in Constantine Porphyrogenitus:-"One part of the nation of the Patzinakes is found
next to the Chersonites, of whom they are the carriers. They always treat them well, as it would be easy for them to ravage and destroy Cherson and the Klimata." He adds, "From Cherson to the Bosphorus are the castles of the Klimata." Dubois, Voyage autour du Caucase, chez les Tcherkess Abkhazes, en Calchide, en Georgie, en Arménie, en Crimée: ouvrage qui a remporté le prix de la Société de Géographie de Paris, 1838 : vol. v. p. 5.