TO THE HERACLEOTIC CHERSONESUS. 22 7 
masses, pillars, if they may be so called, of chap. 
marble, of trap, of day, of common limestone, and v . — , ' 
of schistus, make their appearance, in parallel 
and almost vertical veins, propping up the 
superincumbent strata. Pallas forcibly illus- 
trates their position, by observing, that they 
stand like books upon the shelf of a library*. 
These veins alternate with each other; and 
although they be somewhat inclined, leaning 
from north-west towards the south-east, yet 
their position, in certain instances, is nearly 
vertical. These extraordinary phenomena may 
be discerned all along the south-western coast : 
and that the depth to which they extend must 
be very great, is evident from the appearance 
of the marble mountains of Balaclava, whose 
precipitous elevation from the sea denotes a 
corresponding depth below the water. When 
the veins of clay are washed away by the sea, 
either vast chasms are left, or the neighbouring 
veins fall in; as it happened upon the south 
coast at Kutchulwy, not long ago, where a whole 
village was buried. Sometimes veined slate 
appears within the clay, and often blocks of wood, 
so impregnated with bitumen, that they burn like 
coal. The coast of Balaclava consists entirely 
of marble : more towards the north-west, as at 
VOL. ii. 
(l) See the Note to p. 225. 
Q 
