Page:History of Art in Sardinia, Judæa, Syria and Asia Minor Vol 2.djvu/97

 Boundaries, Climate, and Natural Divisions. 8i The area occupied by Asia Minor is as nearly as possible that of France. Three seas wash its shores — the Euxine to the north, the JEge3.n to the west, and the Mediterranean, with the great islands of Rhodes and Cyprus near its shores, to the south. Its only frontier is towards the east, and no matter the direction assigned thereto, it will always be somewhat arbitrary, since the peninsula is but the prolongation of the uplands, which from one end of the Asiatic continent to the other form the demarcation line between the Northern and Indian oceans. Some have proposed to find this frontier line in the mountain range and the uplands which to the north are the continuation of the Syrian heights, and constitute the dividing crest between the Pyramus and the affluents of the Euphrates, forming a natural dividing line at the base of the peninsula. But on the north-east this limit becomes undefined, so that the geographical division carried right through the plateau of Sivas, across the valley of the Ghermili or Lycus, which feeds the leshil-Irmakor Iris, is more or less conventional and arbitrary.^ Uncertainty of boundary line does not apply to the general character of the country, than which nothing can well be more easily determined. Broadly speaking, Asia Minor may be described as a rectangular plateau supported by mighty ramparts thrown out by mountain chains, which as a rule run in parallel lines pretty close to the sea coast. The rim of this plateau is sur- rounded by mountain ranges of considerable and various heights, here and there inaccessible. It leans against the high uplands of Armenia, of which it is but a secondary ridge, or lower terrace, covering nearly two-thirds of the peninsula. Its aspect is diver- sified, and the transition from the uplands to the coasts is not everywhere constant. There, where the rain which falls on the plateau is most abundant, it has created watercourses of sufficient volume to pierce through the thick barrier of the mountain side. Their bed, in clayey soil, flows between steep banks, which become deeper year by year, presenting the most violent com- bination of colours it is possible to imagine. As they advance, they meet with less resistance, and fluvial valleys are let in, whose charming variety of aspect serves to beguile the tedium of long ascent or descent as the case may be. Sometimes the waters stagnate at the base of the belt surrounding the plateau ere they can open out grooves for themselves, when they disappear in the VOL. II. O
 * Reclus, Geographie Universelle^ torn. ix. p. 462.