'The Expedition for the survey of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, carried on by order of the British government, in the years 1835, 1836, and 1837; preceded by geographical and historical notices of the regions situated between the rivers Nile and Indus. In four volumes. With fourteen maps and charts, and embellished with ninety-seven plates, besides numerous wood-cuts. Volume the first.' [‎284] (351/905)

284
GENERAL DESCRIPTION. [CHAP. XIII.
itself, on which a new light has been cast in consequence of
the discoveries recently made towards the south-western side.
Se r i V o a rd 0 Asil The name Asia ' according to some learned critics, belongs
to a very remote period, and different geographical interpreta
tions of the word have been given, among which are an ele
vated or a primitive country, and one on which the sun does
not set. It is not, however, easy to imagine that a very ancient
people would have given a general designation to the whole
of this great continent; and it is more probable that the name
belongs to a comparatively late period: it is supposed that, in
the first instance, the name was applied to the country nearest
Greece, from whence it extended to the Halys, and from thence
gradually further eastward, till the whole tract from the shores
of the Mediterranean to Behring's Straits was so called.
S mSL The P eninsu la of Lesser Asia extends northward from the
Sea of Cyprus to the shores of the Black Sea, and eastward
from the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of the
Euphrates; its breadth in the former direction being about
360 miles, and its length nearly 600 miles, it has the shape
of an irregular parallelogram, which, exclusive of Cyprus and
the other islands, contains 151,699 square geographical miles
ous'character. ^ a ? eneral wa y ^ diversified country may be described
as a wide spreading table-land sloping westward of the
Euphrates, and gradually sinking below the level of the pla
teau of I'rdn, of which, however, it may be said to form the
continuation: in fertility, and in some other particulars,
Asiatic Turkey differs from the Persian territory, though
many of the leading features in both are precisely alike. The
interior of the former contains many sheets of water of ffreat
magnitude, but for the most part it consists of a succession
o. ^tensive plains not unfrequently furrowed by deep valleys
either separated from each other by lofty chains, or com
pletely inclosed by them, becoming, in the latter case, so many
remarkable mountain basins. The limits of the extensive
upland containing these plains and basins are marked by an
elevated and almost continuous chain, around which, at a lower
evel, a succession of narrow plains border the shores of the
editerranean and Black Seas; the culminating points of the