318 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



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spirited. The headman explained to the 

 Greeks how they should wrap small bags 

 or sacks around the feet of the horses 

 and other cattle when marching through 

 the snow, for without such precautions 

 the creatures sank up to their bellies." 



A BIBLICAL REFERENCE TO WEALTHY 

 TROGLODYTES 



Often the cave-dwellers attained to 

 great wealth and even to political impor- 

 tance. The prophet Obadiah (1:3) cer- 

 tainly had such Troglodytes in mind 

 when he speaks of the pride and the ar- 

 rogance of the Edomites, of their feeling 

 of confident security because of the fact 

 that they dwelt in the lofty clefts of the 

 hills, beyond the reach of their enemy. 



Mt. Argseus (see text, page 283), now 

 an extinct volcano, though it was still 

 smouldering in the time of Strabo, is 

 situated almost in the center of the pen- 

 insula of Asia Minor (see map, page 

 315). The material ejected by this vol- 

 cano during the many ages when it was 

 active covers an immense area and con- 

 sists of a vast bed of pumice-stone or 

 tufa of unknown depth, on top of which 

 there flowed a sheet of lava which varies 

 in depth from four to ten or twenty feet 

 (see pages 322, 327, 329). 



The territory thus affected by the erup- 

 tions of Mt. Argaeus extends from the 

 southwest to the northwest of the moun- 

 tain for a distance of between thirty and 

 forty miles, covering the entire region 

 between Injesu, Martchan, Urgiib, Udj 

 Assarii, Nev Shehir, and Tatlar on the 

 west and extending to Soghanlu Dere 

 (valley) on the south, while on the north 

 and northwest it extends far to the north 

 of the Kizil Irmak (Halys), which has 

 been flowing across the bed of pumice- 

 stone from remote geological times. 



The pumice-stone is soft. It is re- 

 ported that one man excavated a chamber 

 25 feet long, 13 feet broad, and 10 feet 

 high within the space of 30 days. 



FIRST EUROPEAN TRAVELER AMONG TROG- 

 LODYTES CONSIDERED A GULLIVER 



Paul Lukas, who traveled in Asia 

 Minor at the behest of Louis XIV, was 

 the first European to visit this region, but 

 his visit was very hurried, and, strange as 

 it may seem, he thought that these cones 



