152 
THE CAUCASUS. 
shooting over the heads of alps subordinate to them. But these, 
subordinate there, would be stupendous in any other situation. 
It is comparison that makes the great and greater, though it 
cannot alter the positive quality of the thing. This then, is the 
first, and noblest range of the Caucasus. 
The second branch, is distinguished by the name of the Mos- 
sian Hills, and was the Mooschici montes of Ptolemy, It stretches 
along, from the vicinity of a Turkish fort called Battoumi, (in a 
nearly parallel direction with the first range, though at a great 
distance,) till it reaches the banks of the A raxes, and is lost in 
i ' 
the plains of Megan. This branch is again connected with the 
primary chain, by a series of mutual ramifications, forming rich 
valleys; and spreading out into the fertile plains of Akhiska, 
Immeretia, Kartelania, and Georgia, reaching down to Shirvan. 
The most considerable line of the connecting mountains, is that 
called the Tchildirr range, and is to the east of the Black Sea; 
whence, stretching in all directions, it mingles its widely diverging 
branches with those of the first and second leading chains ; and, 
running onward to the third, whose wild steeps embank the 
shores of the Euphrates, it thus connects the whole. 
This third range, (known to Ptolemy by the name of the Mom 
Paryardes,) in some respects vaster, and, perhaps, more inter¬ 
esting than the other two, takes a direction, along with the 
Euphrates, to the south-west; forming a third parallel chain of 
the Caucasus, till it terminates that answering line in Armenia: 
and that at the point, where stupendous Ararat towers above 
every other mountain. Thence, the chain makes an abrupt 
angle ; and, diverging suddenly due south, shoots out into all 
those various branches which spread themselves over Persia, and 
Asia Minor. 
