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RAN, a plateau with numerous large depressions, is cradled between two mountain ranges sweeping majestically from the knotted heights of Armenia north of the Fertile Crescent. One wing, a lofty ridge known as the Elburz, advances eastward along the south of the Caspian, where it reaches its climax in the towering peak of the Demavend. Continuing eastward, it dwindles away in the steppes of Khurasan, where it meets the line of the Hindu Kush coming from the opposite direction, from the Pamirs, the "roof of the world." The second wing, called the Zagros ranges, curves gently southeastward, then still more south. In numerous parallel folds it skirts the eastern edge of fertile Babylonia, forms a glittering and almost impassable barrier on the eastern shore of the Persian Gulf, and, after advancing over the desolate regions along the Indian Ocean, turns sharply northward through Baluchistan and Afghanistan to join other mountains spreading, like the Hindu Kush, fanlike from the Pamirs.

These mountain ranges on either side of the plateau have been from time immemorial Iran's strength—and weakness. From them came treasured metals and