PERSIA 



4594 



PERSIA 



way for wheeled traffic, extending 217 miles 

 from Rcsht, on the Caspian Sea, to Teheran, 

 was built in 1899 by Russia, and another, 

 ninety-one miles long, between Ispahan and 

 Ahwaz, was constructed by the British in 1900. 

 Since 1903 several paved roads between the 

 chief cities have been opened and now travelers 

 and mail are conveyed by cart, safely if not 

 very rapidly. 



Persia's only railroad, extending six miles be- 

 tween Teheran and one of its suburbs, war? 

 opened for traffic in July, 1888. Merchandise 



Physical Geography and Climate. The 

 greater part of the country is an elevated table- 

 land 3,000 to 5,000 feet high, broken by rough 

 hills and enclosed on all sides but the east by 

 a wall of bleak mountains the Zagros on the 

 west, the Kurdistan Mountains on the south- 

 west and near the northwestern boundary the 

 Elburz range, whose highest peak, Demavrml. 

 rises to 19,000 feet. The plains of the table-land 

 are barren and the surrounding slopes have only 

 a scanty covering of dwarf oak, cypress and 

 walnut trees, but the valleys are made fertile 





IN PERSIA'S CAPITAL CITY 



The streets of Teheran are narrow and usually are crowded ; the roofs of the houses are flat and 

 are much used by the people as observation and sleeping quarters. 



is carried by steamship to Russian ports across 

 the Caspian and to English and Indian ports 

 by way of the Persian Gulf. A telegraph sys- 

 tem of about 6,500 miles of wire has been built 

 by the British government, and since 1904 Per- 

 sia has had telegraphic communication with 

 India. Mails are carried regularly to and from 

 218 postoffices, and there is service twice weekly 

 to and from Europe. 



Cities. In the five principal cities of Persia, 

 Teheran, the capital ; Tabriz, the industrial cen- 

 ter; Ispahan, Meshhed and Kirman, there is a 

 population of only 680,000. 



by the melting mountain snows, and in these 

 districts grow a great variety of timber and 

 plants, and most of the crops of Central Eu- 

 rope can be raised there. 



Dense, humid, malarial forests border the 

 shores of the Caspian Sea, while along the Per- 

 sian Gulf the table-land drops to a sandy plain, 

 spotted with only a few patches of green oasis. 

 In the eastern part of the country, divided by 

 a narrow ridge of hills and a caravan route, lie 

 Persia's two desert areas, the Great Salt Desert, 

 a sea of rock salt covering 600 square miles and 

 the Great Sand Desert. 



