THIS PHOTOGRAPH IS INTENDED TO CONVEY A VIVID IMPRESSION OF THE 

 UNEXCAVATED CONE IN ITS SEMI-PRISTINE BEAUTY 



It originally had a cap and was very much larger than it is now. After its cap of lava 

 had fallen off, in consequence of the rotting of the stone under the weathering of millennia, 

 the cone rapidly decreased in size. 



ancient and modern times are to be found 

 in greatest number in the shadow of Asia 

 Minor's loftiest peak, snow-clad Mt. 

 Argaeus (called by the Turks Erjias 

 Dagh), an extinct volcano whose erup- 

 tion in the dim past laid the foundations 

 and supplied the material for these re- 

 markable habitations, while the Halys 

 River of the ancients (now known as 

 Kizil Irmak) in succeeding centuries be- 

 came their tireless architect (see text, 

 page 318, and map, page 315). 



The practice of living in caves, in cliffs, 

 or in excavated cavities in the open plain 

 is to be traced to a state of society which 

 we of today have some difficulty in de- 



picting to ourselves. And yet the central 

 thought of the Troglodytic* habit is the 

 basic principle upon which ancient civili- 

 zation was founded. 



That basic thought was absolute isola- 

 tion — a thought which is wholly an- 

 tagonistic to our modern conceptions of 

 society, whether we have in mind the 

 community of a country-side, a village, a 

 town, or a State ; because, where abso- 

 lute isolation is the dominant obsession 



* The term troglodyte is a Greek compound 

 word, whose first element, trogle, means "hole,'" 

 while its second element is derived from the 

 verb duo, which means "to go, get, dive, or 

 plunge into." Hence, a troglodyte is a man 

 who goes into a hole — lives in a hole. 



283 



