Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/264

Rh 252 CAUCASUS near Anapa oil the Black Sea, till it sinks into a range of low hills, as it approaches Baku on the Caspian. Its width on the other hand is comparatively small, not exceeding in general about 70 or 80 miles, and even where widest not attaining more than 120 miles. Few great mountain chains have their boundaries so clearly marked by nature. On the N. it is bounded by the vast plains and steppes of Russia, which extend completely across from the Sea of Azoff to the Caspian, and are carried up to the very foot of the mountain slopes ; on the S. it is bounded at first by the Black Sea, for a distance of nearly 240 miles, and afterwards by the broad and level valley of the Rion as far as Kutais, about 70 miles inland. Farther east ward the valley of the Kur may be considered as forming its southern limit from the neighbourhood of Tiflis to the Caspian, a distance of more than 250 miles. But between the towns of Kutais and Tiflis the country is more broken, the underfalls and minor ramifications of the Caucasus extending to the south so as te meet those of the mountain chain which forms the southern boundary of the valley of the Rion. The two ranges are, indeed, united at this point by a transverse range of very moderate elevation, which forms the watershed between the streams that flow i into the Black Sea, and the Km and its tributaries, which flow eastward towards the Caspian. This dividing range (commonly known as the mountains of Suram from the town of that name) may therefore be regarded as con stituting a connecting link between the Caucasus and the southern range, which extends from the Black Sea in the neighbourhood of Poti to that of Tiflis, and itself attains to a very considerable elevation, several of its summits having an altitude of from 9000 to 10,000 feet. But these ranges belong to the great mountain group of Armenia, and are inseparably connected with the mountains of Lazistan, and with those which extend inland to join the northern branches of the Taurus ; and they cannot with any propriety bs regarded as forming part of the system of the Caucasus. The transverse range above described, though forming the watershed between the two basins of the Rion and the Kur, is in itself but an inconsiderable ridge of hills, and the point where it is traversed by the high road between Kutais and Tiflis has an elevation of only about 3000 feet above the sea. Hence the Caucasus may properly be considered as forming an isolated chain, unconnected with any other of the great mountain systems of Asia ; while those to the south of it belong in reality to the wide spread ramifications of the range known to the ancients as Mount Taurus, which extends from Asia Minor through Armenia into Persia. It is unfortunate that some modern geographers, especially Germans, have introduced into their systematic treatises the practice first adopted by the Russian residents in the provinces south of the Caucasus of designating these southern ranges by the appellation of the Little Caucasus, a term tending to produce confusion, and to encourage the notion of their being connected with the great northern range in a manner which is certainly not the case in any true orographical sense. In the present article the name of the Caucasus will be employed only as applied to the great mountain range which, as has been already stated, forms a continuous barrier from the shores of the Black Sea to those of the Caspian, and to which alone the appellation has been applied from the time of the Greeks to our own day. The origin of the name is unknown. It was employed by the Greeks in very early times, and has continued in use among geographers ever since. But no general name for the whole chain is known to the tribes that inhabit it, or to those that immediately adjoin it. Nor does it appear that any of the local or native designations of portions of the mountains known by this name are such as may reasonably be supposed to have given rise to the term. At the present day the line of the Caucasus is generally regarded as constituting the boundary between Europe and Asia ; and though it is only in quite modern times that this line of demarcation has been established among geographers, it is so much the most convenient natural limit that it can hardly fail to continue to be received. aa such. The scientific conclusion has, moreover, been con firmed of late years by the official sanction of the Russian Government, which has adopted the watershed or central ridge of the Caucasus as the line of separation between its European and Asiatic provinces. In its general character and conformation the range of the Caucasus may be considered as presenting more analogy with the Pyrenees than with the Alps. Its general uniformity of direction, its comparatively small width, and its well-defined limits towards both the south and the north, are strong features of resemblance to the former, rather than to the latter, of these well-known ranges. To these it may be added that, like the Pyrenees, the ridge of the Caucasus generally preserves for long distances together a high average elevation, and is not broken by those deep depressions, constituting natural passes across the chain, which are of such frequent occurrence in the Alps. Another point of resemblance between the Pyrenees and the Caucasus is to be found in the fact that in both cases two of the highest summits are in some measure detached from the main range; and just as the Mont Perdu and the Maladetta both lie south of the central ridge of the Pyrenees, and are consequently distinctly included in Spain, so Mount Elbruz aud Kazbek the two best known summits of the Caucasus are situated decidedly north of that chain, and must therefore be geographically assigned to Europe, if the line of demarcation be drawn along the watershed of the range. Both these mountains are, in fact, of recent volcanic origin, and, geologically speaking, unconnected with the granitic masses which constitute tha central axis of the chain. It had long been known that the highest summits of the Caucasus exceeded the most lofty of the Alps in positive elevation; but until very recently no accurate measure ments of them existed, and little or nothing was known of any of the individual peaks except the two already mentioned. Of these Mount Elbruz owes its celebrity not merely to the fact that it is in reality much the most lofty summit of the whole range, attaining an elevation of not less than 18,526 feet, but to the circumstance that from its partly isolated position, it is conspicuously seen, both from the Black Sea and, on the other side, from the plains and steppes of Russia, where it is said to be distinctly visible from a distance of more than 200 miles. Kazbek, on the contrary, attracted attention from an early period, on account of its proximity to the Pass of Dariel, in all ages the only frequented pass across the range of the Caucasus. Hence it was long supposed to be the second in height of the whole range, which is now found not to be the case, though it attains an elevation of 16,546 feet, or nearly 800 feet higher than Mont Blanc. But between these two giant peaks rise those of Koschtan Tau and Dych Tau (both of the names until very recently quite unknown), of which the former rises to nearly 17,100 feet, while the latter attains to 16,925 feet; these are therefore entitled to rank as the second and third summits of the Caucasus, while Kazbek can claim only the fourth place. It is, indeed, doubtful whether some of the other peaks on the great snowy range do not also exceed it in height. For the purpose of description it may be convenient to divide the great range into three portions. 1. The first of these, comprising the western portion of