mountains.  The soil, though less fertile than that of Chaldaea or of Egypt, was by no means deficient in resources.  The mountains contained copper, iron, lead, some gold and silver,* several kinds of white or coloured marble,** and precious stones, such as topaz, garnets, emeralds, sapphires, cornelian, and lapis-lazuli, the latter being a substance held in the highest esteem by Eastern jewellers from time immemorial; Mount Bikni was specially celebrated for the fine specimens of this stone which were obtained there.*** Its mountains were in those days clothed with dense forests, in which the pine, the oak, and the poplar grew side by side with the eastern plane tree, the cedar, lime, elm, ash, hazel, and terebinth.****

* Rawlinson has collected traditions in reference to gold and silver mining among the mountains in the neighbourhood of Takht-i-Suleiman; one of these is still called Zerreh- Shardn, the mount of the gold-washers.

     ** The best known was the so-called Tauris marble quarried
     from the hills in the neighbourhood of Lake Urumiyah.

*** The list of precious stones which Pliny tells us were found in Media, contains several kinds which we are unable to identify, e.g. the Zathene, the gassinades and narcissitis.  Pliny calls lapis-lazuli sapphirus, and declares that the bright specks of pyrites it contained rendered it unsuitable for engraving.  In the Assyrian inscriptions Mount Bikni, the modern Demavend, is described as a mountain of Uknu, or lapis-lazuli.

**** A large part of the mountains and plains is now treeless, but it is manifest, both from the evidence of the inscriptions and from the observations of travellers, that the whole of Media was formerly well wooded.

The intermediate valleys were veritable orchards, in which the vegetation of the temperate zones mingled with tropical growths.  The ancients believed that the lemon tree came originally from Persia.* To this day the peach, pear, apple, quince, cherry, apricot, almond, filbert, chestnut, fig, pistachio-nut, and pomegranate still flourish there:  the olive is easily acclimatised, and the vine produces grapes equally suitable for the table or the winepress.** The plateau presents a poorer and less promising appearance—­not that the soil is less genial, but the rivers become lost further inland, and the barrenness of the country increases as they come to an end one after another.  Where artificial irrigation has been introduced, the fertility of the country is quite as great as in the neighbourhood of the mountains;*** outside this irrigated region no trees are to be seen, except a few on the banks of rivers or ponds, but wheat, barley, rye, oats, and an abundance of excellent vegetables grow readily in places where water is present.