TOPOURAPHY. The relief features of this con tinent are characterized by great extremes and by an unparalleled variety; it has the most ex tensive lowlands, the greatest table-lands, the highest chains of mountains, and the most ele vated summits in the world. Tracts to everlasting snow and scorching sterility, salu valleys of continual verdure, and noisome jungles of the rankest growth are found within its limits.
About 1000 miles southwest of the centre of the continent, where India, Turkestan, and Afghanistan meet, is an elevated region known as the Pamirs, and to its inhabitants as the 'roof of the world.' It is of great height, even the valleys exceeding 11,000 feet in altitude above the sea, while the mountains are many thousaml feet higher. From this region as a centre, mountain systems mid ranges radiate in various directions, but mainly eastward and westward, inclosing between them elevated plateau-like areas. These mountain systems with the inclosed plateaus, form the broad back bone of Asia. running with a widely differ ing breadth, nearly east and west across the continent. It is widest in the east, where it stretches from the Indo-Chinese Peninsula across Western China and Manchuria to Southeastern Siberia, extending from latitude 20' to 50° N.; it narrows in the Pamirs. and broadens again westward to include most of Afghanistan, Baluchistan, Persia, and Asia 31inor. From the mountain knot of the Pamirs stretches a moun tain system, bordering the northern margin of the main plateau. The ranges comprising the.sys tem are somewhat broken and disconnected, and many of them arranged en echelon. They extend, under various names, to the coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, and thence along the coast to Bering Strait. North of them lies Siberia, a great plain with a breadth of 130° of longitude, sloping gently over 25° of latitude to the Arctic Ocean.
East of the Pamirs the great plateau is limited on the smith by the Himalayas, while between this great range and the northern system are many other ranges traversing it. This table-land con tains the plateau of Tibet and the vast elevated expanse of Han-hai, which includes the Desert of Gobi or Shama, and the Takla 2dakan Desert. The plateau of Tibet lies directly north of the Himalayas, and is limited on the north by the Earakarum, Knenlun, Altyn Tagh, and Nan shan ranges, and on the east by the broken moun tainous country in the west of China. Its surface is a plain, diversified by many mountain ranges, trending generally east and west. It is the most elevated plateau on earth, its western part rang ing in height from 14,000 to 17,000 feet, sloping eastward down to 9000 feet. It is a bleak, arid
region, and its few inhabitants are occupied mainly in pastoral pursuits. The great plateau of Ilan-hai, which lies north and northeast of Tibet, is limited on the north by the succession of ranges which commence with the Tian-shan, and are followed by the Alatau, Altai, Sayan skit. and Stanovoi ranges, and extend northeastward to the Sea of Okhotsk and Bering Strait; and tom the east by the Khingan :Moun tains, mainly comprised in Mongolia. Its other wise level surface is intersected by many moun tain groups, and has an elevation of 3000 to 4000 feet.
On the south the plateau region is separated from the plains of Hindustan by the Himalaya Mountains, many of whose summits rise from 25,000 to 29,000 feet above the level of the sea, Even the passes over this enormous range are almost as high as the sununit of Mont Blanc. Here Dliwalagiri, long supposed to lie the Mont Blanc of the Himalayas. rises to 20,S00 feet, leaving all the peaks of the Andes far below, while Kunchinjinga reaches beyond 28,000 feet, and Mount Everest, limy believed to be the loftiest summit on earth, attains the height of 29,000 feet.
From the Pamirs stretches westward a great succession of mountain ranges, which, beginning with the Hindu Kush (which attains a height of 25,000 feet), and prolonged westward by the Paropamisus, in Afghanistan, by the Elbu•z in northern Persia, with Demavend (about 18,500 feet), by the mountains of Armenia (culminat ing in Mount Ararat), and by the Tanrus Range and other mountains of Asia Minor, forms a fairly continuous line of ranges to the shore of the ...Egean Sea. _North of it, in southwestern Siberia and western Turkestan, is a depressed area, in some places below sea-level, which is drained into the Aral and Caspian seas. The great plateau of which these ranges form the back-bone consists of throe sections. To the south of the Elton Z Lange and the Paropamisus, is the great plateau of Iran, in Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan. West of this is the Median Armenian Alpine region, some of whose plateaus are at elevations of over 6000 feet. Beyond this the plateau formation extends westward in the Anatolian table-land. The western plateau of Asia, thus divided into three sections, is full of diversities of soil and scenery. A great part of the table-land of Iran is extremely barren and arid, which serves to explain the enthusiastic terms in which the Persian poets have spoken of the beautiful valleys found here and there among the mountains. The coasts of the Persian Gulf are sanely wastes. A great part of llaluchistan also is an arid plain, covered with red sand.