BLACK SEA, CAUCASUS, AND ARMENIA.— The great Asiatic highland south-east of the Black Sea and south-west of the Caspian has ever been remarkable for its numerous races, and is now a well-head of nationalities, where the people promise at no distant period to combine into new nations. This region is enclosed on the west by the torrent river Kizil Irmak, the Halys of the ancients ; on the south it has the Tigro-Euphrates valley and its border-lands; on the east are the desert tracts of Central Persia ; and on its north, the Black Sea, Russian Georgia, and the Caspian Sea. The highland is formed by several entangled mountain chains, apparently belonging to, but somewhat apart from, the Caucasus, from which it is separ ated by •the 'wide valley of Georgia, and the plains watered by the Rion or Phases and the Araxes. These highland mountains run N.W. and S.E. from the Anatolian coast beyond Trebizond, to the lofty peak of Demavend, and the neighbourhood of Tabreez or Taurus. It com prises parts of Turkey, Russia, and Persia, the whole east of Anatolia, with Northern Kurdistan, both of which belong to Turkey, the Russian provinces, of Erivan and Karabagh, with the Persian province of Azerbijan, and in their central point is the double cone of Ararat, covered by never-melting snows. The soil is fertile up to
6000 feet, and produces all kinds of cereals, with the yaila or pasture lands of vast extent, and clothed with excellent grass, rising still higher. In the valleys below arc the vines, fruit trees, maize, rice, tobacco, and varied cultivation, alternating with forests in which grow the ash, walnut, box, elm, beech, oak, fir, and pine, and amongst its minerals are iron, copper, silver, and lead. From its valleys flow the great rivers Choruk, Armes, Tigris, and Euphrates, with all their countless tributaries, with other water-courses, some for the Black Sea, some to the Caspian, some to the Mediterranean, and sonic to the Persian Gulf. The population of that mountain tract is made np of Armenians, Turkomans, and Kurds, and until recently did not exceed fifteen to the square mile. But to avoid the pressure of Russian rule, many of the Turkomans from the N.E., and many Circassians, have crossed into the Turkish dominions, and many Turkomans also have joined from Persia.