border faces the' midland hallow of the Asiatic continent
which contains the .Caspian and Aralian Lakes,'/and the
beds of the Oxns and the Jaxartes„. The low countries
of Mazanderan and Ghilan on the shore“ of the Caspian
Sea, fire placed-beyond and .below the northern êide .v-of
the great Upland. On the western side,/where Tran is
contracted into its narrowest breadth between, the Caspian
Sea and the Persian Gnlph, in the meridian of Hamadan
or Ecbatana, the Alpine tracts o f . Armenia and Kurdistan
approach its borders; and here the plateau - is 3[ -broke,n
into chains of hills separated by deep hollows or valleys,
such as those (Which contain the Kisilirmak, and the
tributary streams of the Araxes and the1 ‘Tigris, and
the mountain-lakes of Van and Urumiyek*- IClose's- here
the level character of its surface, and rises into lofty heights
in the mountain-land of the ancient Medes and the modern
Kurds. The western and southern sides of the.' Iranian
Upland are bounded by a vast- series of parallel mountain
chains, which* run out from, or arê a prolongation of,
Caspian Sea, to Mount-Imaus, which Strabo expressly declares to have been
the termination of the chain of Taurus. Pliny likewise mentions the northern
chains of Persia as parts of the same Taurus,, which he terms “ Efumerpsis no-
minibus ihsignis. Tmaus primâ parte dictus, mox Emodus,-paropamisus,tOir-
cuis, Chàmbadèë,;Pafyadrés, Niphates, Taurus, atqueubi së quoque eianpefat,
Caucasus.”— Strabo,-15. p. 689. Pliny, H. If., 5. 27. Ritter is thte first mdV
dern Writer who has traced these extensive notices^oJhe works of'tja.p andieht
geographers. See his “ Iranische-Welt,” s. 550.
* A late eminent writer on the physical geography of these regions, which he
has himself visited, and óf which he has studied' in thé country the geographical
structure, has deduced, apparently without any acquaintance with the
writings of Professor Ritter, from Ids own obsérvations compared with those
of others, a result exactly coinciding with that of M. Ritter, and strikingly
confirming his general and systematic Views. The following is a note appended
by Mr. Ainsworth, to the account of Kurdistan, given in a late number of the
Transactions of the Royal Geographical Society
* “ It might he added, as one of the great peculiarities of the mountains of
Kurdistan andof the Persian Apennines, that they do not constitute, as is usually
the case, chains which rise towards the centre and fall towards the sides; but
a country of mountains gradually rising towards an upland beyond. But this
is also the case with Taurus, where the waters spring from the northern declivities,
as at the Gölek Böghaz and the pass of Pelverreh, and great rivers, as
thë Southern Taurus, makinga great oblique sweep from
tbe north-west towards the south-east. The formation of
this" great chain is* such-as to render "all the south-western
border of thè plateau a series of longitudinal valleys and
sucdèssiveÉijevations, by which the traveller, who passes
from the lo^êr lands of* Khuzistan, Irak-Arabi, Algezira,
or from the low Countries"' bf> Assyria, after crossing the
Tigris, “’towards tbe interior4, has to ascend over a series
of long teriaJs'ses'| oriniountaih-steps, which are separated
by tie courses“ of rivers or longitudinal valleyè ; but over
which he mounts . Successively ’to a higher elevation.
To this may he compared, on a small scale, the ascents
and valleys of tie Jura, or of the Sierra Morena in Spain,
or th e | Lange Kloof in South Africa* or the valleys of
Bhutan in EastëM/:AsiaTè|*lSilch is the description of the
country, given by Pliny, who*Says that the ascent into
thV’dnteriór of Persia from the coast, was compared by
th‘e ancients to a great ladders—C£ QuA vero ipsa, scilicet
’#ëgio maritima| shbit ad Medos, ‘ Climax Megale ’■ appell
a t e /dóWst; arduo montis ascensu, ^pel gradus, introitu
angusto ad Persepolin, caput; regni dirutum ab Alexand
ra ”* ' Further eastward, in Mekran, the southern border
of the Iranian-^ plateau presenTs its front immediately
againstUbe Indian Ocean. The eastern, .boundary consists
'almost ' uniformly of long mountaimehainsy which rise
from the sóhth-eaStern angle of Befechistan, and fronting
the valley' of the Indus, stretch northward, taking the
name, of Soliman, towards the highest regions of Khbul and
Kafiristan.-f
the Seihufi, Geïhun, Euphrates, and Tigris, find their way through the chains.
In the Kurdistan mountains We find the greater and lesser Zab presenting similar
phenomena, and the same is the case with regard to the Diyallah in Luristan.
The elevation of the great Persian Upland, east of these mountains, is, according
to Fraser, at ZergaD, 4500, at Isfahan 4000 (Hamadan is evidently higher), at Tabriz,
according .to Brown, 4500, and from several observation shy myself, at the
Lake of Urumiyeh 4300 feet. The sources of the Zah, according to Col. Mon-
teith, are at an elevation of 7500 feet, which will be found to agree with the
thermometer level.”-— Journal of the Roy. Geog. Soc. of London., Vol» 11, p. 22.
* Plin. H. N. b. c. 29. . t Ritter, Iran-plateau, 712,
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