From this general survey of the surface configuration of the Ukraine, we can easily see that more than nine-tenths of the surface of this land is taken up by plains and [25]plateaus. Nine-tenths of the Ukrainians have certainly never seen a mountain and do not even know what one looks like. Expressive of this circumstance is the fact that in the wide plateau and plain region of the Ukraine the most insignificant hills bear the high-sounding name of “mountain.” But, despite this, the Ukraine also has its share in the three mountain systems of Europe—the Carpathians, the Yaila, and the Caucasus. All three were formed thru plication of the rock-layers. The vast plication-formed mountain range of the Caucasus, even in the small part belonging to Ukrainian territory, attains an alpine height; the scenery of the Yaila along the Crimean Riviera is wonderful, but the Carpathians, altho not as lofty as the Caucasus and not of such scenic beauty as the Yaila, are the dearest to the heart of the Ukrainian. For the Ukrainian nation expanded in the Caucasus only a century ago and has but just reached the Yaila. And the Eastern Carpathians have for more than a thousand years been a Ukrainian mountain range. Still, hardly one-third of the 1300 km. curve of the Carpathians belongs to Ukrainian national territory. Toward the west the Carpathians are inhabited by Poles and Slovaks; in the east and south by the Roumanians. The boundary-posts of the Ukrainian territory extend in the west beyond the famous defile of Poprad. From the rounded peaks of the mountain country where the last Ukrainian villages lie, one sees rising at a very short distance the imposing range of the Tatra; still nearer lie the cliffs of the Pienini, famous geologically as well as for their scenery. In the eastern part of the Carpathian chain, Ukrainian territory reaches the Prislop pass, which connects the valleys of the Golden Bistritz and the Visheva (Visso). To the Ukraine, then, belongs the sandstone district of the Carpathians at that point where it is highest [26]and most developed. It is called simply the “wooded Carpathians.”