OF THE CRIMEAN PENINSULA.

49

haven by an ifthmus about two or three hundred broad, andon which the town is fituated.

On the fame fide, at the diftance of 900 fathoms from thelittle harbour, there is a ftill fmaller, narrow creek, two hundredand fifty fathoms in length, and which was formerly calledAvlita. Here fhips of war may be conveniently laid on theirTide, in order to be calked and refitted. As the external timberof fhips is, in two years at the fartheft, completely corroded byfea-worms, fuch repairs frequently become neceffary; becaufethefe vermin are very numerous along the whole coaft of theCrimean Peninfula, efpecially from this place to Kaffa andKertfh, and even in the harbour of Akhtiar. No remedy hashitherto been found more effectual for the prefervation of fhipsthan that of placing them, at leaft every fecond year, on theirfides in this fmall bay, and of charring them with tar andjuniper-bufhes; an Operation which is attended with greatdanger of fetting them on fire, while it materially injures thevefTels, by turning them from the keel. In the fea of Azof,where the water is lefs faline, and in the Liman near Otfhakof,thefe worms generally perifh; nay, it has been remarked, thatvefTels perforated by them, draw more water in the fituationslaft mentioned, but that they become lefs leaky in the BlackSea. I had now, in Company with my friend, Vice-AdmiralPrieftman, an opportunity of witneffing this hazardous methodof charring fhips. I obferved the marine productions adheringto the bottoms of vefTels, and then vifited the banks of the.fmallbay, into the extremity of which flovvs an inconfiderable brook,that irrigates a fmall traft of low country overgrown withherbs; but the humidity of which is faid to be detrimental to

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