"دليل بلاد فارس، المجلد I ويشمل محافظات أستراباد، شاهرود-بوستان، خراسان، وسيستان" [ظ‎‎٢‎٠‎٥] (٧٢٢/٤١٧)

364
Basman, and his maps wrong in making but one. Further west we traced
KhanikofPs great central range west of Yazd, as far south as lat. 27° 30' •
and found the other minor ridges between Karman and Shiraz to lie in the
same uniform direction—a parallelism I had previously found to occur in
the ranges on all the roads between Bushahr and Shiraz, and that city and
Isfahan.
On returning to England, the new data obtained by ourselves and M.
Khanikoff have enabled me to interpolate with them the observations of
older travellers, to which, from want of solid base to work upon, justice
had not been done by geographers. Thus the travels of Christie and
Truilhier between Tabas and Yazd, and of Keith Abbott* between Yazd
and Karman, conclusively demonstrated the existence of three parallel
ranges between the two former towns, and of a lofty and fertile plateau
(Kuh-Banan) east of the road between the two latter, in a situation
marked on the maps as part of the Karman desert.
The ranges on the coasts of the Caspian and of the Arabian Sea and
the neighbouring part of the Persian Gulf are thus wellnigh conclusively
shown to form the only important exceptions to the general rule of a north
west and south-easterly direction to the ridges. It seems far from improb
able that the same phenomenon will be found to be repeated in the neigh
bouring peninsula of Arabia, when that country is opened to fuller scientific
exploration.
I he general elevation of the mountains of Persia is far greater than
has been generally supposed. Idle volcanic peak of Damavand, whose
fires are still slumbering, marked upon our maps as 14,700 feet above
the sea, has been fixed by the Russian Caspian Survey at 18,600 feet.
Mount Savalan in Azarbaijan is declared by the same authorities to be
14,000 feet in height. I found the Kuh Hazar, south of Karman, to
exceed the latter altitude; and the summits of the neighbouring Jamal-
Baris range are not inferior. But I believe the highest continuous range
in Persia to be the Kuh Dinar—an unvisited chain of mountains in Ears
(the southern peak is marked on our maps as “ Daena, 11,000 ?”). These
are visible from the sea near Bushahr—a distance of 130 miles over ridges
known to be 10,000 feet in altitude. I myself have seen them from the
hills near Yazdikhast in August, presenting an appearance, both as to out
line and extent, not unlike the Bernese Alps, and hardly inferior in extent
or snow-covered surface. As the snow-line at that season is certainly not
below 14,000 feet, I am inclined to estimate the average height of the
Dinar peaks at 17,000 to 18,000 feet above the sea. Many other summits
in Armenia, Kurdistan, and Luristan never totally lose their snow, and can,
therefore, be little less than 15,000 feet. The peaks in the water-parting
of the Alburz do not exceed 13,000 feet; but when these were snowless in
the summer of 1871,1 observed a snowclad ridge north of the watershed
about the western frontier of Mazandaran. In central and eastern Persia
* ^ a matter of regret that this most painstaking and conscientious of non-scientific travellers
has not survived to see justice done to his labours. No general map that I know of contains the
result of Ins travels in Persia (published in the Journal of the Geographical Society), which re
mained unnoticed by geographers till their value was pointed out by Colonel Yule in his Marco
Polo. V\ ithout pretending to aught but a most rudimentary knowledge of suiweying, Mr. Abbott,
m addition to a great amount of political and topographical information, kept a careful road-book
by compass and watch through twelve hundred miles of travel over a country then quite unex-
P !°™ an 1 < \ but , little of whicl1 has tL ' en since seen by a European. Having myself followed part
or x lr. Abbott s route, and having plotted the whole of the remainder from the astronomically
xed points since laid down, I can bear testimony to the skill and perseverance with which he
carried out Ins self-imposed task. Had his labours been properly utilised by map-makers, many of
the gross errors which still disfigure maps of Persia would long ago have disappeared.