278 EUROPE 



be mostly of local occurrence on the Caspian slopes. 

 They are replaced by thickets of a thorny bush, the 

 poliurus, which form a sort of maquis. 



The little Caucasus, south of the Kur valley, and the 

 complex ranges of northern Armenia share only to a 

 limited extent in the luxuriance of the western Caucasus : 

 what remains of their forests is of a mixed deciduous 

 and coniferous type, more or less scattered and with but 

 a scanty undergrowth. The Caspian valleys are increas- 

 ingly dry towards their mouths and largely deforested, 

 and the steppe penetrates far into them ; but agriculture 

 is carried on, even in the lowlands of the Kur valley. 

 This region, being situated on a natural route from the 

 east to the west, and sheltering many vanquished races 

 in the fastnesses of its rugged and difficult mountains, 

 has suffered greatly from the wars and petty struggles 

 that have gone on for centuries, with the result that 

 many of its forests have entirely disappeared : while 

 the agricultural populations made inroads on them from 

 below, the pastoral population of the plateau and upper 

 slopes destroyed them from above. As on the Mediter- 

 ranean, the forests have been reduced often to loose and 

 dry wood-, brush- and shrublands. 



The hilly nature of the Crimean peninsula affords it 

 the full advantage of the moisture of the Black Sea 

 winds and makes it, in respect of vegetation as well as of 

 climate, an outlier of the Caucasian region, in the middle 

 of the steppe. 



Mediterranean. The region of warm temperate cli- 

 mate, with a mild and rainy winter and a hot and dry 

 summer, is fairly well defined, geographically, round the 

 shores of the Mediterranean by a barrier of mountains and 

 highlands: the Pyrenees, the central plateau of France, the 

 Alps, and the Rhodope range. On the east the Mediter- 



