Beside: these central elevated land masses, there are many detached mountain chains and plateaus. The Ural Mountains, forming in part the land boundary between Europe and Asia, are divided into three sections—the northern, cen tral. and southern Ural. The second of these divisions is OA in minerals, gold, platinum, magnetic iron, and copper. On the isthmus be tween the Black Sea and the Caspian, the Al pine ridges of the Caucasus reach a 'height of 10,000 to 11,000 feet, while individual peaks tower up to 17,000 and 18,000 feet, as in the still faintly volcanic peak of Elbruz, 18,500 feet, and KazbeI, 16,500 feet; both of these peaks are, however, on the northern or European side of the main mass of the Caucasus. The high lands of Syria rise gradually from the neighbor ing deserts in the ranges as the Lebanon and Antilibanus to heights respectively of over 10.000 and 9000 feet, and slope steeply in terraces down to the narrow' coast lands of and Palestine. The peninsula of Arabia is a table land of moderate height, continuums with the Syrian desert, and bordered by low mountain ranges. In the extreme south the mountains attain an elevation of nearly S000 feet. Arabia is separated from the Armenian plateau on the north by the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. Most of its area is desert, but in the interior the plateau reaches an elevation ,kutlicient to induce enough rainfall for the cultivation of crops; this is, therefore, the populated region.
South of the Himalayas, at the head of the peninsula of India, is a depression ined on the east by the Ganges. and on the west by the Indus. The Ganges Valley is the densely popu lated region of India. East of the Lower Indus is the desert of Sindh. Farther south on the peninsula is the plateau of the Deeean, which rises to an average height of from IWO to 2000 feet. it is separated on the west from the lia• INV coast-level of Malabar by the Western Ghats; on the east, from the broad level coast of Coromandel, by the Eastern Glints; on the north It is separated from the low plains of Ilindustan by the Vindhya and Malwa tain chains; and on the south the Chats unite at the sources of the Kaveri forming the or Blue Mountains, 8760 feet high, the loftiest chain in the peninsular portion of India. Burma and Assam are crossed by numerous mountain groups, which extend in broken lines from the interior of Tibet to the extremity of the Malay Peninsula. China Proper and French Indo-China have mountainous interiors, while the whole eastern coast-line of Asia from Korea northward is paralleled by lines of highlands. The Japanese Archipelago may be regarded as a submerged mountain chain rising from the im mense depths of the Pacific and reaching with the Kurile Islands northward to Kamchatka. The chain is crowned by numerous volcanic cones, and throughout its extent earthquakes and seis mic disturbances are frelpient phenomena.