Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/770

704 the waters of which have no direct communication with each other. One of the moat remarkable features in the physical geography of the interior is the fact, that one of the basins thus parted off from the rest, extending nearly 250 miles in length and 150 in breadth, from the sources of the Sangarius and Halys on the north to the great chain of Mount Taurus, has no communication with the sea, the streams by which it is watered having no outlet, and con sequently forming a chain of lakes extending from near Syunada in Phrygia through the whole of Lycaonia, to beyond Tyaria in Cappadocia. The most considerable of these lakes is that called, by Strabo, Tatta, and by the Turks, Tuzlah, or the Salt Pan, an epithet well deserved from its extreme saltness, which exceeds even that of the Dead Sea. It is about 45 miles in length by 18 in breadth, but varies mu?h with the season, being very shallow, so that a considerable portion of its surface is dry in summer and covered with incrustations of salt. North of the region of these lakes lies a dry and naked tract, consisting principally of undulating downs, traversed by the branches and tributaries of the Sangarius and Halys, but otherwise scantily supplied with water, and almost wholly destitute of trees. A portion of this region was in ancient times specially designated as Axylus, or the wood less ; but the same epithet might with almost equal pro priety be applied to the whole tract extending from Dorylaeum and Cotiseum, through the north of Phrygia and Galatia, to the confines of Pontus and Cappadocia, a distance of nearly 300 miles. These vast treeless downs afford pasturage at the present day, as they did in the time of Strabo, to numerous flocks of sheep, but they are for the most part uncultivated, and in many places utterly barren and desolate. The few towns that are found within their limits are, however, sometimes surrounded by luxuriant gardens and fruit-trees in great variety.

Mountains.—The orography of Asia Minor is extremely complicated, and is still but imperfectly known, though the researches of recent travellers, especially of Hamilton and Tchihatcheff, have of late years thrown much light on the subject. But very few of the highest ranges have as yet been accurately measured, and the barometrical determina tions of the altitudes of numerous points in the interior, which have been made by Hamilton, Ainsworth, and Tchihatcheff, often differ so much from one another, as to render it doubtful how far we can place reliance upon them. At the same time, we are now able, in a general way, to describe and distinguish the more important mountain ranges of the peninsula a task for which there existed no sufficient materials down to a late period. By far the most important of these mountain ranges, and that which constitutes one of the leading geographical features of Asia Minor, is the great chain known to modern as well as ancient geographers by the appellation of Mount Taurus. Beginning at the south-western extremity of the peninsula, in the province of Lycia, it extends in a direc tion nearly parallel with the south coast as far as the south eastern angle at the confines of Cilicia with Syria, a distance, as measured on the map, of more than 7 of longitude, or above 400 English miles. Throughout this extent it forms a continuous range of very considerable elevation, constituting a complete natural barrier between the Mediterranean and the great upland plains of the interior ; while in some parts, as in Lycia and the western portions of Cilicia, it sends down numerous arms and branches quite to the sea-shore : in others, on the contrary, leaving a broad strip of alluvial plain between the foot of the mountains and the sea. Its positive elevation is very imperfectly known, none of the summits of the great cen tral range having as yet been measured with any degree of accuracy, and the numbers given in the best maps resting only on the more or less vague estimates of different travel lers. It is probable, however, that throughout the greater part of its extent the summits of the main range attain to an elevation of from 7000 to 8000 feet, while many of the higher summits are estimated to exceed 10,000, and in some instances, at least, to approach to 11,000 feet. {{ti|1em|The only portion of the Taurus which has yet been examined with much care is that contained within the ancient province of Lycia. Here, as is observed by Strabo, the whole country is occupied by the ramifications of the great chain, which descend in numerous arms and branches quite to the sea, leaving between them only narrow valleys and alluvial plains of very small extent at the mouths of the different rivers. In this instance, as in many similar cases, several of these offshoots and outliers of the main chain attain to a greater elevation than the summits of the central range itself. Thus it is stated, that while the peaks of the Lycian Taurus, which walls off the great mountain table-land of Asia Minor, do not much exceed 7000 feet, the mountain mass of Massicytus (Ak-dagh), which forms the eastern boundary of the Xanthus valley, attains to 10,000 feet; Soosoos-dagh, east of the preceding, rises to between 8000 and 9000 feet; and the highest point of Mount Solyma (Bai-dagh), which rises immediately to the west of the Gulf of Adalia, attains to 10,500 feet (Spratt and Forbes s Lycia}. It is obviously impossible to fix pre cisely the natural termination of the Taurus in this part of Asia, these various ridges expanding from the central chain much in the form of a fan. The Gulf of Macri (the Glaucus Sinus of the ancients) is often taken as marking its limits to the west, but in reality, the ridges which descend from the central table-land to the sea opposite Rhodes, as well as to Cnidus and Halicarnassus, are all ramifications of the Taurus, and any one of these headlands might with equal propriety be chosen as the first com mencement of the great mountain chain. The popular notion among the ancients, which regarded Cape Chelidonia (the south-eastern promontory of Lycia) as the termination of the Taurus, is deservedly censured by Strabo, who regards the chain as prolonged to the Persea of the llhodiaus.}} One of the characteristic features of the Lycian Taurus, which is found also throughout the whole range, is that of the frequent occurrence of basin-shaped valleys, called by the inhabitants &quot; yailahs,&quot; sometimes containing mountain plains of considerable extent, walled in on all sides by limestone mountains, and having no outlet for their waters, which in consequence pour themselves into the precipitous cliffs that surround them. These yailahs vary in elevation from 2000 to 6000 feet, and afford excellent pasturage, on which account they are the summer resorts of the wander ing tribes of Turcomans and Yourouks. Almost the whole mass of the Taurus is composed of limestone, belonging to the same great formation which constitutes the greater part of the Apennines, as well as of the mountains of Greece, and is generally known to geologists by the name of scaglia, or Apennine limestone. The streams which descend from thence to the sea, and which in many cases have had subterranean courses of considerable extent, are so strongly charged with carbonate of lime that they form vast deposits of travertine ; and the level plains intervening between the foot of the mountains and the sea, instead of being com posed, like ordinary alluvial plains, of loose detritus and soil, consist of solid deposits of travertine rock of an extent unknown elsewhere. The whole plain of Pamphylia, at the foot of the mountains of Pisidia and Isauria, is thus constituted, and a considerable part of the plains of Cilicia is composed of similar materials. The principal passes across the chain of the Taurus which are deserving of notice, are the following : 1. That which crosses the chain from the plain of Cibyra (a portion of the 