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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



A TURKISH FLOUR-MILL 



its name, for it is in truth a gateway, 

 the only passage for a hundred miles or 

 more by which it is possible to cross with 

 ease over the Taurus range, whether one 

 be going from east to west or north to 

 south. Darius, Xenophon, Alexander, 

 the Crusaders, and many other invaders 

 have used it as a matter of course, be- 

 cause there was no other route. Many 

 of them left the record of their passing 

 carved upon the stone, but most of the 

 inscriptions are now obliterated. 



The gate is a narrow canyon, with 

 almost perpendicular sides, at the base 

 of which it has been possible to build a 

 roadway only by encroaching upon the 

 space where the river once ran. The 

 narrowness of the gorge and the steep- 

 ness of its sides are due to the fact that 

 just here the limestone which composes 

 the mountains has been sharply bent 

 down to the northward and broken off. 

 An unusually hard layer which normally 

 lies on top of the other rocks is thus 

 tipped over until it stands almost verti- 

 cal. During the course of ages the 

 softer rocks on either side have been 

 worn away, and this layer has been left 

 as a ridge running nearly northeast and 



southwest and cut in two by the sharp, 

 stream-worn gash of the gates. 



The Cilician Gates have been much 

 talked of in connection with the pro- 

 jected Bagdad Railway from Constanti- 

 nople to the Persian Gulf. For years 

 the railway has waited at the edge of 

 the interior plateau, unable, as it were, 

 to get through the peripheral moun- 

 tains and down to the Cilician plain. At 

 last, however, it is about to move for- 

 ward toward Adana and Aleppo, and 

 ultimately, after lo or 20 years, toward 

 the Persian Gulf. During the summer 

 of 1909 surveys were carried across the 

 Taurus Mountains and construction will 

 now proceed rapidly. 



The line will not pass through the 

 Cilician Gates, as has often been sup- 

 posed. About five miles to the east there 

 is another gorge, deeper and more inac- 

 cessible than that at the gates, but occu- 

 pied by a larger stream,' the Chakit. 

 This branch of the Sihun heads well 

 back in the plateau and runs direct to 

 Adana, the objective point in the Cilician 

 plain. The Chakit gorge is so narrow 

 and deep that it has never been possible 

 to use it as a roadway. For a railroad, 



