The central desert of Persia, included between these several moun tain ranges, extends from 40 to 350 miles in width from north to month; and in length it extends through 9 degrees of longitude. The nature of tide desert varies in different placed. In some the surface is dry, and even produces a few of those plauts which require n malt boil; In others we find • crackling cruet of earth, covered only with reline efflorescence. A cousiderable portion is marshy, and in cer tain spots mod prelombrater. In several parts of it rocks rim abruptly, though in general only to a moderate elevation. Thews reeks, caually short ridge*, Inclose small ewes or fertile spots where at and herbage are found, and which are inhabited. The largest of those owes fonts a eerie* across the desert between Herat and Impeller; extending from the former westward to Tubbus, from Tubbus southeard to Yeed, and thence westward to Ispahan. The town. of Tubbua and Yea I are situated in the molt extensive of these oases. The 'atelier oases tranaversed by the road between those towns are to 30 miles apart.
Rim-. and leact.—The table-laud of Iran, aa well as the moun tain region. which surround it uu the north and south, is very sparingly watered. The southern mouutain moges are too bare and slao too low to attract sufficient moisture to form perennial /dreams, except in • few places. The northern mountains give rho to a much greater number of watercouregi ; but as soon a they cuter the plain, and sometimes before, the small volume of water which they bring down during the greater part of the year is absorbed in irrigation, and only • few t f these streams reach the desert, where they are lost in the dry and thirsty soil. Only those parts of Persia which arc included in the plaint of Glillan and Mezturdence in the table-laud of Azerbijau, and in the mountain. of Kurdirtan, aro well watered. The rivers of Ghllan and Mazanderan have a short course, but they are usually navigable for some miles from their mouth, where the woods on their bank. do not form an impediment. The most considerable river in the table-land of Azerbijan is the Sa0d.11ud, or White River, the ancient Amardus before mentioned. The whole course of the Sefid-Rud may be about MO miles On the table-land the bed is generally many hundred fe. t, and sometimes a thousaud feet, below the adjacent country. Thus it minuet be used for irrigation, and though the banks are lees elevated in the plain above the pass of Rudbar, still the waters cwt nowhere be used to fertilise the couutry. Its Ohilau the current k not rapid, but the river ie not navigated, there beiog no place of any importaoce on its banks, which are very low and swampy. Two
tit erg, each ruuning about 100 miles, fall iuto the lake of Urumiyeh : the Aji, already noticed, and the Jagluitu, or Jeghetu. This last men tioned river is formed by two heabstreams, ono of which flows north from the :Caul:ban I'esa in the Zagros Mountains, and the other the Saruk, which rises in the angle between the Kibleh and the Kafilan mooktaina, And receives numerous feeders from the barren undulating downs that surround the Takhti-Soleiman, the aite of the ancient Ecleatitea. The Sara nova near, rot on, the boundary of Azerbijau and Persian Kurdistan. Its course is geuerally south-west, in a narrow rocky valley between high banks, broken at intervals by huge ravines which ibtersect the couutry in all directions. From the point of confluence, which is a few trilled west of the great ravine of Karaften, celebrated for its eaves, the scenes of ancient Mithraic worship, the Jaglittu continues among the mountains for about twenty miles to Kaz-Kopii; the valley then expanda, and at length opens out into the great plain of Mirjwtdab, un the south-east of Lake Urumiyeh. This plain is traversed a little farther west by the Tatau, which flows northward from the great western mountains through the districts of Sardasht and the Mikri Kumla, and enters the lake near its south easteru point. In the plains about the lake the rivers named are extensively used to irrigate the valleys through which they flow, and else the plain itself. Tho rivers which draiu the mountaius of Kurdistan and its numerous valleys aro not navigable within the mountains, as their course is frequently broken by rapids and cataracts; and where they enter the plain they are not navigated, the adjacent country being nearly uuinbabited. Three of these rivers run between 200 and 400 miles : the Didytilah,whieh joine the Tigris below Baghdad; the Kerkhab, which falls into the Shat el-Arab a few usilea below Kemal]; and the which passes Shuster, mid after receiving the Dizful River (aneientCoprates) near Ahwaz, flows into the Shat-el Arab by interns of an artificial canal called Helfer, and also by a direct mouth Into the sea. The Karun ie the ancient Eulecus. Below its junction with the Cupratea, it was also called Paritieeris. The Karen is • deep river, easily uavigable. Lieutenant Selby asceuded it a few years ago in a steamer to Shuster. Tho Kerkhah is the ancient Choaspes : at the point of its nearest approach to the Dizful Rivet are the ruins of the aricieut city of Susa. These rivers are moro fully noticed In the article 011 the Paahalic of Bee:ilea; where alau the course of the JunnIi is traced.