poor peasants. The range in the Crimea from Cape Kersonese to the Bay
of Ratla is formed of layers of limestone alternating with clay and
argilaceous schist, a disposition of the strata that tends greatly to
accelerate the disintegration of the cliffs. The clay gradually washed
out by springs or eaten away by the weather forms great caverns in the
sides, and these are liable to fall in when deprived of support. They
have, however, been utilised as habitations. The Rock of Inkermann, the
ancient Celamita, runs east of the town beyond the marshy valley of the
Chernaya; it has been converted into a vast quarry which menaces with
destruction the old Troglodyte town that occupied the cliffs. The
galleries of this underground town form a rabbit warren in which it is
dangerous to penetrate without a guide or a clue. Some of the chambers
are large enough to contain five hundred people.

The rocks of Djonfont-kaleharri are also honeycombed, with still
inhabited caves; some are completely cavernous, but others have the
openings walled up so as to form a screen. Beneath an overhanging rock
is a domed church used by this Troglodyte community.

If we cross the Mediterranean to Egypt, we see there whole villages of
cave-dwellers. The district between Mansa-Sura and Cyrene is full of
grottoes in the very heart of the mountains, into which whole families
get by means of ropes, and many are born, live and die in these dens,
without ever going out of them.

The volcanic breccia as well as chalk and limestone has been utilised
for the habitation of man. There is a very interesting collection of
cave-dwellings all artificial, the Balmes du Montbrun, a volcanic
crater of the Coiron, near S. Jean le Centenier in the Vivarais. The
crater is 300 feet in diameter and 480 feet deep; and man has burrowed