South of the Yaila and Caucasus Mountains, on the shore of the Black Sea, lies a narrow strip of land which actually shows Mediterranean climatic characteristics. The winter lasts less than a month and is very mild (January mean of Yalta +3.5°, altho the absolute minimum is -13°), and, as in Novorossiysk, cold, bora-like gusts of wind are common in times of heavy cold. After a long spring follows a six-months’ summer, which passes imperceptibly into a mild autumn. The climate of the mountains of the Ukraine has been but little investigated. In the entire Ukrainian territory there is not a single meteorological observatory. The general characteristics of mountain climate, its greater uniformity, the smaller difference between the warmest and coldest months, the belated beginning of all the seasons, etc., may be found in all the mountains of the Ukraine. Only the climate of the Ukrainian Carpathians is somewhat better known. The dreariest climate is that of the Beskyds and the Gorgani. The five-months’ winter and long periods of sloppy weather in the spring and in the fall encroach upon the short summer. The Chornohora chain, despite the greater height of its peaks, upon which [92]the snow in sheltered places remains lying thru the entire summer, has a much milder and pleasanter climate. The influence of the warm summer of the adjacent plain regions limits the duration of the sloppy weather in spring and autumn. For this reason, the mountain valleys have a short but very beautiful spring, a warm summer, and a wonderful mild autumn. The mountain pastures have in place of the summer only a three months’ spring. In the Yaila Mountains, as a result of their small size and height, the characteristics of typical mountain climate are lacking, but in the Caucasus we find them in their highest development. The analogy to the Alps is perfect, but the influence of the continental steppe climate of the surrounding country is unmistakable, expressing itself in the position of the various climatic regions, in the height of the snow limit, in the development of the glacial covering, etc., very distinctly and very differently than in the Alps, which are surrounded by countries with a climate of a different kind.