always bring the traveller into a temperate region.

In respect of natural productiveness, Media (as already observed)
differs exceedingly in different, and even in adjacent, districts. The
rocky ridges of the great plateau, destitute of all vegetable mold, are
wholly bare and arid, admitting not the slightest degree of cultivation.
Many of the mountains of Azerbijan, naked, rigid, and furrowed, may
compare even with these desert ranges for sterility. The higher parts
of Zagros and Elburz are sometimes of the same character; but more often
they are thickly clothed with forests, affording excellent timber and
other valuable commodities. In the Elburz pines are found near the
summit, while lower down there occur, first the wild almond and the
dwarf oak, and then the usual timber-trees of the country, the Oriental
plane, the willow, the poplar, and the walnut. The walnut grows to a
large size both here and in Azerbijan, but the poplar is the wood most
commonly used for building purposes. In Zagros, besides most of these
trees, the ash and the terebinth or turpentine-tree are common; the oak
bears gall-nuts of a large size; and the gum-tragacanth plant frequently
clothes the mountain-sides. The valleys of this region are full of
magnificent orchards, as are the low grounds and more sheltered nooks of
Azerbijan. The fruit-trees comprise, besides vines and mulberries, the
apple, the pear, the quince, the plum, the cherry, the almond, the nut,
the chestnut, the olive, the peach, the nectarine, and the apricot.

On the plains of the high plateau there is a great scarcity of
vegetation. Trees of a large size grow only in the few places which are
well watered, as in the neighborhood of Hamadan, Isfahan, and in a
less degree of Kashan. The principal tree is the Oriental plane, which
flourishes together with poplars and willows along the water-courses;
cypresses also grow freely; elms and cedars are found, and the orchards