CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



connected on the s*uth-west by the Hindu Kush 

 with another table-land, that of Iran, which ex- 

 tends from the Indus to the Greek Archipelago, 

 with an elevation of 6000 feet in Afghanistan, 

 4000 in Persia, 5000 in Armenia, and from 2000 

 to 4000 in Asia Minor. Two detached table- 

 lands, above the elevation of icoo feet, fill the 

 interior of Arabia and Southern India. The moun- 

 tain-chains of Asia generally run along the edges 

 of the plateaus. The Himalaya include the loftiest 

 mountains of the globe Mount Everest, 29,000 

 feet; Kunchinginga, 28,156 feet ; and Dhawaligiri, 

 26,680. 



The plains of Asia by which we mean that 

 part of the surface of the continent lying at an 

 elevation of less than 500 feet above the sea form 

 a vast expanse in North-western Asia, stretching 

 from the edge of the Iranian table-land, through 

 X orthern Siberia, to the Arctic Ocean and Behring 

 Strait. This great plain sinks on the shores of 

 the Caspian to a level below that of the ocean. 

 The other plains of Asia, which lie south and east 

 of the table-lands, are much less extensive, but, 

 lying under a warmer climate, they are of infinitely 

 greater importance. The great plain of China 

 includes the deltas of Yang-tze-kiang, the Hoang- 

 ho, and the Pei-ho ; the Indo-Gangetic plain, 

 those of the Ganges, Indus, and Brahmaputra ; the 

 Assyrian or Babylonian plain, that of the Tigris 

 and Euphrates. 



The seas, bays, and gulfs which indent and 

 intersect the surface of Asia are in noway so 

 remarkable as those which give character to 

 Europe. 



The islands more immediately connected with 

 Asia are the Liakhov group, in the Arctic Ocean ; 

 the Aleutians, in the Sea of Kamtchatka ; the 

 islands of Japan ; Saghalien, Formosa, Hainan, 

 and Chusan, off the coast of China ; Ceylon, the 

 Andaman and Nicobar Isles, in the Indian 

 Ocean ; and Cyprus, in the Levant. (The large 

 islands of Sumatra, Java, Borneo, Celebes, &c. 

 generally known as the East India Islands, are 

 treated in the following number.) 



The lakes or inland seas of Asia constitute one 

 of its peculiar features, most of these being salt or 

 brackish, having no visible outlet, and being in 

 some instances considerably beneath the general 

 level of the ocean. The largest of these is the 

 Caspian, having a length of 760 miles, with an 

 average breadth of 200, receiving the rivers Volga 

 and Ural, but with no outlet ; its waters brackish, 

 and of unknown depth, and its surface-level 84 

 feet beneath that of the Black Sea. 



Of the rivers which water the continent, a large 

 number are of the first-class. In Eastern Asia, 

 we find the Amour, Hoang-ho, Yang-tze-kiang, 

 and Hong-kiang, all of which are slow-flowing 

 rivers, and navigable for a long way into the 

 interior. India without the Ganges is watered 

 by the Camboja, Meinam, and Irrawadi; and 

 Hindustan by the Brahmaputra, Ganges, and 

 Indus. The Ganges, though subject to annual 

 inundations, and to a very rapid and dangerous 

 tidal bore, is one of the most valuable rivers in 

 the world, being, with most of its tributaries, 

 navigable to the very basis of the mountains. 

 The same, however, cannot be said of the Indus, 

 which, though of ample volume, has an obstruc- 

 tive and shifting delta, which renders it of little 

 avail, unless to small steamers. In Western 



274 



Asia are the Tigris and Euphrates the latter, 

 navigable for flat-bottomed steamers so high as 

 Bir. 



CLIMATE, ETC 



In Northern Asia, no mountain chain prevents 

 the entrance of the polar winds, and, in con- 

 sequence, they sweep southwards over the plains 

 of Siberia and Turkestan. In Southern and 

 South-eastern Asia, the monsoons (see METEOR- 

 OLOGY) explain the cause and course of the 

 winds. They enable us also to explain the dis- 

 tribution of rain in Asia. The great mountains 

 which fringe the table-land condense the vapours 

 brought from the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and 

 thus China, Indo-China, Eastern India, the 

 coasts of the Indian peninsula, and the southern 

 sea-board of Arabia, are well watered by periodical 

 rains. North of the table-land and its fringe of 

 mountains there is a fall of periodical rains, which, 

 although scanty, redeems from sterility the coun- 

 tries on which it falls. In the interior of the con- 

 tinent and within the plateaux, on the other hand, 

 rain is scarcely known. Thus, the Altai, the Hima- 

 laya, and the Chinese highlands make Tibet and 

 Mongolia the most arid countries of the globe. 

 The great Desert of Gobi, the deserts of Persia, 

 of Syria, Arabia, and Western India, may all be 

 explained by the fact, that the winds which come 

 to them from the ocean have been robbed of their 

 vapour by the mountain ranges. In Southern 

 India, the Western Ghauts receive the vapours 

 of the south-west monsoon ; the Eastern Ghauts, 

 those of the north-east monsoon, and both are 

 well watered. But the winds which pass into the 

 interior have become dry, and hence the aridity of 

 the table-land of the Deccan, and the necessity of 

 irrigation to make it fertile. The fact is, that 

 aridity is the chief feature of all the countries lying 

 between the Red Sea and Northern China. 

 They can be rendered fertile when cultivated by a 

 peaceful and industrious population, intelligent 

 enough to construct and keep in repair reservoirs 

 and irrigation canals; but they become utterly 

 desert when war or bad government interferes 

 with the combinations and arrangements necessary 

 for this purpose. Hence, there are no countries 

 the prosperity of which is so completely depend- 

 ent, as those of Western and Central Asia, on 

 peace and good government. 



Asia is traversed by all the zones of climate into 

 which the surface of the globe has been divided by 

 meteorologists and botanists. Northern Siberia, 

 to a line just south of the Arctic circle, has a tem- 

 perature of from 5 on the north to 30 Fahr. on 

 the south. It is the country of the Tundras 

 frozen marshes which fill the lower basins of the 

 Siberian streams. The cold temperate zone suc- 

 ceeds stretching from the last area to a line run- 

 ning from the Gulf of Finland to the northern 

 shore of the Sea of Okhotsk. It has a tempera- 

 ture of from 30 to 40 Fahr. and is the zone to 

 which Norway and Finland belong. There occur 

 within it tracts of arable soil, in which the hardier 

 grains, oats, barley, and rye, potatoes and turnips, 

 can be cultivated in sheltered situations. The 

 next, the temperate zone, from 40 to 60 Fahr. 

 extends southwards to a line which runs from the 

 Black Sea to the north of Corea, and the Strait of 

 Sangar, which separates the southern from the 

 northern islands of Japan. It has the climate of 



