OR, PLAIN 



400 to 500 feet), comprise hills, 

 16, 16. When one district 

 of country stands considerably 

 higher than another in the same 

 locality, they form uplands, or 

 highlands, 17, and lowlands, 18. 

 Mountains, instead of rising on 

 one side, and descending over the 

 other, frequently form the lofty 

 borders to elevated tracts of 

 country. Such tracts are called 

 plateaux, or table-lands, 19. The 



19 



131. 



nlost extensive table-land of 

 Europe is that of central Spain, 

 the elevation of which is 2,000 

 feet above the sea. Upon this 

 are situated the two important 

 provinces of Old and New 

 Castile, the former including 

 Madrid, the capital of the king- 

 dom, with a population of 206,000 

 (more than 200,000) . The table- 

 lands of Persia range from 3,000 

 to 6,000 feet above the sea; of 

 Mongolia, in Central Asia, from 

 8,000 to 12,000 ym?. Here, at 

 an elevation, nearly equal to the 

 summit of Mont Blanc, a vast 

 plateaux extends, in which there 

 are numerous lakes and rivers. 



TEACHING. 11 



Grass grows to a prodigious 

 length, and the Thibetans rear 

 immense numbers of sheep, goats, 

 and yak buffaloes. 



A great extent of land, desti- 

 tute of water, and unfit for 

 animal or vegetable life, is a 

 desert, 20. The Sahara, or Great 

 Desert of Africa, consists of 



132. 



a vast plain of burning sands. 

 It covers on area nearly three 

 times the size of the whole of 

 Erance, and exhibits occasionally 

 a sterile rocky hill, and a few 

 green spots, or oases, where trees 

 grow in the vicinity of springs. 

 For a distance of 700 miles in 

 one direction, no living creature 

 finds a habitation, and travellers 

 rarely venture. Hot winds raise 

 clouds of burning sands, and those 

 who have encountered them 

 describe the effect as terrible. 

 A great plain in Central Asia, 

 the Gobi, is covered in parts with 

 stunted grass, in others with 

 shifting sands ; but there are 

 occasionally fine pastures. The 

 Great Indian Desert extends 



