Annotated Copy of Persia and the Persian Question by George Curzon, with Inserted Papers [‎386r] (774/1814)

' d at all. t,
86111 polic y has i'
^een the nn, ■ ^
ablets toT c >
" b :r ai ^
’ W )f ls ^Bted i S)
!Souteniand «s
° n ! tbe ncl1 «>tnl®4
cheap, to the toms d
J ^ear. But I
3 in Persia,
at about six milesf^
r s P r ings from whiclis
irent marble, sometits
»wn of Maragha, me-
■s, clustered within an
constantly bubbling tif
lold in solution. Thisis
which are like a ti
or broken, but whicl
n average thickness of 1
e believed to have teo
3r temperature than tie
letrifaction can be saw
ndy transparent, and 1
istantial slabs, in vB
iral wainscoting. P'
a pink, or greeni* 1
r copper-coloured#
I have seen bea#
the East. Ibave^l
xiir Amir, or
3 d in my former''
uiposed of th^ ®
iat the gr^ a
18-20.
Maragha
THE NOKTH-WEST AND WESTERN PROVINCES 535
should have carried home with him at the close of his Persian
campaign . 1 The process of petrifaction bears a marked resemblance
to that which was in existence till the great eruption of a few years
ago at the Pink and White Terraces in New Zealand; and to that
which may still be seen at the Mammoth Hot Springs in the
Yellowstone Park, in North America, where the induration may
be observed through all its stages from a film like frosted sugar to
gleaming blocks of snow-white marble.
The neighbouring town of Maragha, which is now a fiourishing
place with about 15,000 inhabitants, has, like many of its compeers
in Persia, played an eminent though almost forgotten
part in history. Here the enlightened Mongol prince,
Hulaku Khan, the grandson of Jenghiz Khan and brother of
Kublai Khan, returning from his conquest of Baghdad and over
throw of the Abbaside Khalifs, fixed his residence; here he drew
around him a distinguished body of philosophers, poets, and men
of science; and here in 1265 a.d. he died and was interred, on a
hill of the Shahi peninsula . 2 The fame of the city was, however,
chiefiy due to the labours of his friend and counsellor, Nasr-ed-Din,
the greatest astronomer of the age, who erected on a hill to the west
of the city, where its foundations may still be traced, the observatory
which has preserved his name, and in which he composed his ‘ Tables
of the Ilkhani The paramount chief of certain tribes in south west Iran. / Hulaku is now almost forgotten, and Maragha knows
another Nasr-ed-Din; but it is permissible to the student, as he passes
by, to add a stone to the fallen cairn of such illustrious names.
On the other or western side of the lake, and at a distance of
twelve miles from its shores, stands the city of Urumiah (shortened
by the Christians into Urmia or Urmi), in a plain that
is deservedly famous for its abounding fertility . 3 Framed
in the Kurdistan mountains, from which descend a multiplicity of
perpetual streams, and planted, irrigated, or peopled to the full
extent, it has been variously reported to contain 400, 300, and 200
villages (round numbers, which I take to be merely indicative of an
1 Since writing the above, I have come across the statement, as a matter of
fact, that Timur took back with him to Samarkand a large suppty of the marble
of Azerbaijan.
2 His so-called grave at Maragha is probably the tomb of one of his wives.
His mother was also buried there.
:i Vide a paper on the topography of the Urmi district by H. Kiepert, ^eit-
sehrift d. Gesellsch.f. Erdh. z. Berlin, 1878, pp. 166-70 ; and Mrs. Bishop’s descrip
tion of Urmi city and plain (Journeys in Persia, vol. ii. pp. 218-45).
Urumiah