TOPMRAPIIY. Turkey in Europe shares the topographic characteristics of the whole Balkan Peninsula. It is chiefly covered with mountains, which. generally speaking. extend in parallel chains from northwest to southeast, often. how ever, interrupted by short. transverse ranges. There are no large plains excepting those of the Maritza Valley and the central coastal plain north of the island of Thasos. The greatest ele vations are in the west and south. Here the Albanian-Greek _Mountains rise in the Shar-Dagh to a height of about 10,000 feet and to a nearly equal altitude in Mount Olympus. Above the low coasts of the Black Sea rise hills of small elevation, west of which is the fertile valley of the Maritza River. \Vest of the Maritza Valley are the Rhodope Mountains or Despoto-Dagh, towering up on the Bulgarian border to a height nearly equal to that of the western mountains. A little to the southwest is the Perim-Dagh, not greatly inferior in elevation. Mount Athos, at the southeast end of the mountainous peninsula of Chaleidice, which projects into the _Egean, rises steeply to a height of over 6000 feet. In
the extreme west is the wild and almost inacces sible mountain land of Albania. descending to the marshy and unhealthful coastal plain of the Adriatic.
The coasts are valuable features for the trade of the country, thong)) the Black Sea coast is poor in havens. The winding river-like strait of the Bosporus, which connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmora, and through it with the Mediterranean, has ample depth for the largest vessels. here is the magnificent harbor of Constantinople, the great meeting place of the Eastern and Western trade. On the strait of the Dardanelles, leading from the Sea of Mar mo•a into the Mediterranean, is the harbor of Gallipoli. The -Egean coast abounds in bays and excellent harbors, of which the chief are Dedea gatch, the outlet of the grain exports of the Maritza Valley, and Saloniki, which shares with Constantinople most of the foreign trade. The Adriatic coast, though less irregular, also has good harbors, none of them, however, being of much modern importance.