TEHERAN is known from repeated obser va.tions to bo 3600 feet above the level of the sea. It is in lat. 35° 37' N. and long. 50° 52' E. The plain on which it stands consists of the debris of limestone and trap-rocks. It is surrounded by a. deep ditch, towers, and a mud wall, embracing a circuit of eight thousand yards, with four gates ; that to the south leading to Isfahan, that to the north-west to Tabreez ; the other two look towards the hills in the corresponding directions. Outside the walls there are suburbs of considerable extent, several large caravansaries, and many enclosed gardens. Inside, the principal object is the Ark, or Royal Palace, which occupies a large space of ground adjoining the northern wall, and is com pletely cut off from the rest of the town by its own eircle of bulwarks. At all its issues sentinels keep guard, and at night no one can traverse the streets which skirt it without the password.
Teheran is a mud-built city of 100,000 inhabit ants. It was made the capital by the founder of the Kajar dynasty in 1788. It stands on a vaat plain. Looking to the west and south, only the faint outline of distant hills are visible. Looking northwards, the Elburz mountains are seen rising from advanced spurs some three or four miles off, their loftiest peak, Dennivend, its base hidden by intermediate ranges and distant about 50 miles, towers high over all, 20,000 feet and more, into the sky.
The Elburz mountains at this part have an older and more romantic celebrity attached to them than the gloomy fame they derive from Hasan Sahib and his sanguinary followers. The ancient Hyreania, a country of warriors who are reported to have carried a charmed life, lying immediately north of these hills, their passes became tho scenes of more than mortal combats between the simply brave heroes of Persia and these magician chieftains. They are also noted for having been the place of refuge of the illus trious prince Zal.
In summer the thermometer ranges in the shade between 95° by day and 86° in the night, and the people then live in the cellars, and sleep on the houso-tops, while the court retires to the shah's summer palace on the slope of Elburz, or to the tents under which the. descendant of the Turkomans loves still to dwell.—Porfer's Trarels, p. 309 ; Quarterly Review, No. 269.