Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/752

686 great altitude, and separates the head waters of the Oxus, which run off to the Aral Sea, from those of the Indus and its Cabul tributary, which, uniting below Peshawar, are thence discharged southward into the Arabian Sea. The western part of the range, which received the name of Paropamisan Mountains from the ancients, diminishes in height west of the 65th meridian, and constitutes the northern face of the Afghan and Persian plateau, rising abruptly from the plains of the Turkoman desert, which lies between the Oxus and the Caspian. These mountains at some points attain a height of 1 0,000 or 1 2,000 feet. Along the south coast of the Caspian this line of elevation is pro longed as the Elburz range (not to be confused with the Elburz of the Caucasus), and has its culminating point in Demavend, which rises to 18,500 feet above the sea; thence it extends to the north-west to Ararat, which rises to upwards of 17,000 feet, from the vicinity of which the Euphrates flows off to the south-west, across the high lands of Armenia. Below the north-east declivity of this range lies Georgia, on the other side of which province rises the Caucasus, the boundary of Asia and Europe between the Caspian and Black Seas, the highest points of which reach an elevation of nearly 19,000 feet. West of Ararat high hills extend along the Black Sea, between which and the Taurus range lies the plateau of Asia Minor, reaching to the ^Egean Sea ; the mountains along the Black Sea, on which are the Olympus and Ida of the ancients, rise to 6000 or 7000 feet ; the Taurus is more lofty, reaching 8000 and 10,000 feet; both ranges decline in altitude as they approach the Mediterranean.

24. This great plateau, extending from the Mediterranean to the Indus, has a length of about 2500 miles from east to west, and a breadth of upwards of 600 miles on the west, and nowhere of less than 250 miles. It lies generally at altitudes between 2000 feet and 8000 feet above the sea level. Viewed as a whole, the eastern half of this region, comprising Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan, is poor and unproductive. The climate is very severe in the winter, and extremely hot in summer. The rainfall is very scanty, and running waters are hardly known, excepting among the mountains which form the scarps of the elevated country. The population is sparse, frequently nomadic, and addicted to plunder ; progress in the arts and habits of civilisation is small. The western part of the area falls within the Turkish empire. Its climate is less hot and arid, its natural productiveness much greater, and its population more settled and on the whole more advanced.

25. The peninsula of Arabia, with Syria, its continuation to the north-west, have some of the characteristics of the hottest and driest parts of Persia and Baluchistan. Excepting the northern part of this tract, which is conter minous with the plain of Mesopotamia (which at its highest point reaches an elevation of about 700 feet above the sea), the country is covered with low mountains, rising to 3000 or 4000 feet in altitude, having among them narrow valleys in which the vegetation is scanty, with exceptional regions of greater fertility in the neighbourhood of the coasts, where the rainfall is greatest. In Northern Syria the mountains of Lebanon rise to about 10,000 feet, and with a more copious water supply the country becomes more productive. The whole tract, excepting south-eastern Arabia, is nominally subject to Turkey or Egypt, but the people are to no small extent practically independent, living a nomadic, pastoral, and freebooting life under petty chiefs, in the more arid districts, but settled in towns in the more fertile tracts, where agriculture becomes more profitable, and external commerce is established.

26. The area between the northern border of the Persian high lands and the Caspian and Aral Seas is a nearly desert low-lying plain, extending to the foot of the north- western extremity of the great Tibeto-Himalayan moun tains, and prolonged eastward up the valleys of the Oxua and Jaxartes, and northwards across the country of tho Kirghiz and Kassaks, to the south-western border of Siberia. It includes Bukhara, Khiva, and Turkistan proper, in which the Uzbeg Turks are dominant, and for the most part is inhabited by nomadic tribes, who are marauders, enjoying the reputation of being the worst among a race of professed robbers. The tribes to the north, subject to Russia, are naturally more peaceable, and have been brought into some degree of discipline. In this tract the rainfall is nowhere sufficient for the purposes of agriculture, which is only pos sible by help of irrigation ; and the fixed population (which contains a non-Turkish element) is comparatively small, and restricted to the towns and the districts near the rivers. 27. The most northern extremity of the elevated Tibeto-Himalayan mountain plateau is situated about on the 73d meridian east, and 39 N. lat. This region is known as Pámir; it has all the characteristics of the highest regions of Tibet, and so far fitly receives the Russian designation of steppe ; but it seems to have no special peculiarities, and the reason of its having been so long regarded as a geographical enigma is not obvious. From it the Oxus, or Amu, flows off to the west, and the Jaxartes, or Sir, to the north, through the Turki state of Kokand, while to the east the waters run down past Kashgar to the central desert of the Gobi, uniting with the streams from the northern slope of the Tibetan plateau that traverse the principalities of Yárkend and Khoten, which are also Turki. Here the Tibetan mountains unite with the line of elevation which stretches across the continent from the Pacific, and which separates Siberia from the region commonly spoken of under the name of Central Asia.

28. A range of mountains, called Stanovoi, rising to heights of 4000 or 5000 feet, follows the southern coast of the eastern extremity of Asia from Kamchatka to the borders of Manchuria, as far as the 135th meridian, in lat. 55 N. Thence, under the name of Yablonoi, it divides the waters of the river Lena, which flows through Siberia into the Arctic Sea, from those of the river Amur, which falls into the North Pacific ; the basin of this river, with its affluents, constitutes Manchuria. Approximately at right angles to the last named range, another, known as the Khingan, ex tends between the 120th and 115th meridians, from the 55th to the 42d parallel of N. lat., east of which the drain age falls into the Amur and the Yellow Sea, while to the west is an almost rainless region, the inclination of which is towards the central area of the continent, which is Mongolia. 29. From the western end of the Yablonoi range, on the 115th meridian, a mountainous belt extends along a some what irregular line to the extremity of Pamir, known under various names in its different parts, and broken up into several branches, enclosing among them many isolated drainage areas, from which there is no outflow, and within which numerous lakes are formed. The most important of these ranges is the Thian-shan, or Celestial mountains, which form the northern boundary of the Gobi desert; they lie along the 42d and 43d parallels of N. lat., between the 75th and 95th meridians, and some of the summits are said to exceed 20,000 feet in altitude ; along the foot of this range lie the principal cultivated districts of Central Asia, and here too are situated the few towns which have sprung up in this barren and thinly-peopled region. Next may be named the Ala-tau, on the prolongation of the Thian-shan, flanking the Sir on the north, and rising to 14,000 or 15,000 feet. It forms the barrier between the Issik-kul and Balkash lakes, the elevation of which is about 5000 feet. Last is the Altai, near the 50th parallel, rising to 10,000 or 12,000 feet, which separates the waters of the great rivers of Western Siberia from those that