Bird-Life of the Anatolian Plateau. 367 



covered about 160 km., and passed the villages of Kuyudjak, 

 Seidi-Ghazi, Bardatchi, Yazili-Kaya, Kumbet, and the Sedja- 

 ed-Din Teke (July 4-8). 



The Anatolian Plateau. 



Along the south-eastern margin of Asia Minor rises the 

 lofty arc of the snow-capped Taurus Range. To the north 

 of this the country is a great tableland, stretching away 

 towards Transcaucasia to the east, and descending through 

 mountainous country to the sea on the north and west. 



This tableland, the Anatolian Plateau, consists for the 

 most part of wide undulating plains of Mesozoic sediments, 

 of an average elevation of some 3000 feet, from which 

 rise various minor mountain-ranges and groups of hills of 

 volcanic origin, like islands from a sea. In some districts, 

 as in the south-west, ancient metamorphic rocks rise to the 

 surface to form regions of low hills. 



The climate in summer is very dry, and the country is 

 therefore arid and for the most part devoid of trees. A 

 number of large sheets of water without outlets lie on the 

 plateau, and besides these several large river-systems (Kizil 

 Irmak, Sakaria, etc.) drain to the north or west. 



The winters are severe, with much frost and snow. 



With a proper water-supply, such as will be secured to some 

 parts when the irrigation-schemes at present being carried 

 out are completed, the plains would form a very rich and 

 fertile agricultural country , but just now they are for the 

 most part very arid and very thinly populated. Near the 

 towns and villages wheat of fine quality and other crops are 

 grown, but the greater part of the country is open prairie- 

 land covered with a short turf, or sparsely clothed with 

 herbaceous plants, which grow in tufts so as to form widely 

 open associations. 



The streams are few and sluggish, ending, it may be, ia 

 marshes or shallow lakes without outlets. In some of the 

 more marshy areas which the railway passes through between 

 Eslii-Sheher and Konia, there were scanty woods of small 



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