56 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



EURASIAN WATERWAYS IN TURKEY 



By LEON DOMINIAN 



THE AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY 



THE circumstance of contiguity by which the southeastern end of the 

 Balkan peninsula almost abuts against the extreme northwest- 

 ern shore of Asia Minor provides an Eurasian ford which has facilitated 

 human intercourse between Europe and Asia. The Dardanelles, the 

 Sea of Marmora and the Bosporus constitute in reality a single strait. 

 From Tertiary times to our day a normal and interdependent sequence 

 of events has occurred on its site. In the prehuman period it is possible 

 to trace land-fracturing followed by gorge-carving, valley submergence 

 and strait formation. The post-human development witnesses conver- 

 sion of the locality into an important section of one of the most widely 

 traveled highways of mankind. Two main routes intersect each other in 

 the dividing waters. Their courses leading from northwest to southeast 

 and from northeast to southwest are at right angles to each other. In 

 considering the value of the region as part of a much trodden route, it is 

 necessary to ascribe proper importance to its lines of communication 

 with Europe and Asia. 



A Balkan zone of depression extending west and south of the Balkan 

 uplift affords natural access between the valley of the Danube proceeding 

 from the heart of Europe and the Dardanelles-Bosporus passage. It 

 is constituted by the wide valley of the Morava and the narrower Nichava 

 course leading to the Sofia basin, whence penetration into the Thracian 

 plains is obtained by the Maritza valley. 



The corresponding function for the Asiatic shore is performed by the 

 valley of the Sakaria and to a lesser degree by the Pursak river depres- 

 sion — both trending westward from the high plateau of western Asia. 



The main roads from the Bosporus or the Dardanelles to the Sakaria 

 river valley skirt the shores of the straits and the Marmora as they follow 

 a coastal lowland fringing the Dardanian and Bithynian heights. At 

 Panderma, however, the old highway strikes inland slightly south of east 

 to Brusa in order to avoid the elevated plateau intervening between the 

 Marmora and Lake Abullonia. Thence, still following a line of least 

 elevation, it wends its way towards the small harbor of Ghemlik (the 

 Cius of Grseco-Roman times) until beyond Isnik (ancient Nicasa of 

 ecclesiastical fame) it debouches into the waters of the Sakaria. 



The geological evidence at the shores of the Dardanelles and the 

 Bosporus reveals the probable continuity of land at both points in a 



