SOUTH COAST OF THE CRIMEA. ’ 
243 
aid and contribution which the labour and libe- c 1 *ap. 
rality of our friend Pallas could possibly afford. 1 v — 
The principal spontaneous vegetable production 
of the rocks and mountains upon the south 
coast, is the wild sage ; this, as in the islands 
of the Archipelago, attains very considerable 
size ; becoming, in certain instances, tall enough 
to rank as a shrub. Both the yellow and the 
red centaury were also very common. The Hack 
date-tree, the pomegranate, the olive, and tho^g- 
tree, flourished along the coast, as in the South 
of Italy. With regard to geological phenomena, Ge0, °gy- 
it may be added, that the rocks and strata near 
the village of Kutchuchoy are composed of trap 
and schistus, highly impregnated with iron. 
In proportion as this metal is combined with 
aluminous rocks, a tendency to decomposition, 
owing to the action of the atmosphere, may be 
more or less observed. The prismatic configu- 
ration and fracture of trap, of basalt, and of 
some other rocks, although evidently the result 
°f a tendency towards crystallization' , may be 
0) Of this a more convincing proof can hardly be adduced, than 
that the Siberian emerald, whose colouring principle is iron, and whose 
rt 'atrix abounds in iron oxide, not only preserves the hexagonal form 
common to the pillars of the Giant’s Causeway, hut, when fresh dug, 
exhibits also the same remarkable alternate convex and concave hori- 
zontal fissures. See Patrin. Hist. Nat. des Min, tom. ll.p.28. Par. An. 3. 
VOL. II. 
R 
