Guyot on Carl Bitter. 61 



grew under the pen of its author much beyond his expecta- 

 tion. One division, nay, one section alone fills one or more 

 volumes. Western Asia, which begins with the seventh volume 

 of the whole work, scarcely terminates with the nineteenth. 

 The first division describes the lands which Bitter calls the 

 transition forms between Eastern and Western Asia. The 

 system of the Indus, with the Punjaub, Cashmere, and the 

 high valleys of the Himalaya, the Hindo-Khu, the high table- 

 land of Turkestan and the massive chain of the Bolor, down to 

 the low-lands of the Caspian Sea, fill the volume. The Iranian 

 World, or the central plateau of Western Asia, and the sur- 

 rounding countries connected with it, begins properly the 

 second half of the Asiatic continent and the second divi- 

 sion. A full introduction, giving a synopsis of the plateau 01 

 Iran under its physical, archEeological, and ethnological aspects, 

 precedes, and gives the general features which secure for the 

 Iranian world an individual character. The Eastern mass, or 

 Afghanistan, the North and South margin, along the low- 

 lands of Turan and the Persian Gulf ; the Western mass, 

 or Persia, and Aderbidschan, form as many large sections, and 

 occupy two volumes. In the third division the transition 

 forms, or the great water-courses are considered, the twin sys- 

 tem of the Euphrates and Tigris filling two volumes. The 

 fourth division begins the description of the isolated members 

 of Western Asia. The Peninsula of Arabia to the South, 

 occupies two volumes. The fifth division, in two sections, 

 covers the Peninsula of Sinai, Palestine, and Syria, the first 

 with one, the other with two volumes. The last division is 

 devoted to Asia Minor the natural end, toward the West, of 

 the plateau of Iran, and is treated in two volumes. 



It is easy to see by the gradually greater extent given by 

 Bitter to the latter part of his work, that besides the reason 

 just assigned for it, namely, the increasing interest attached to 

 those regions which have been, from the highest antiquity, the 

 scene of history, the plan of the author underwent a slight modi- 

 fication. Bitter's habit of thoroughness and the abundance 

 of new materials accumulating every day, give this latter part 

 of the " Erdkunde" the form of a series of monographs, which 

 may be considered as standard works on each of the countries 

 thus described, and as embodying about the sum total of our 

 knowledge up to the date of their publication. Among the 

 most new, we may name the volume of Eastern Asia, contain- 

 ing a digested account of all the English and other labors on 

 India and the system of the Himalaya ; and again, the two 



