10 ft.;
Fytnargyn-tau, 13,790 ft.; Gezeh-tau, 14,140 ft.; and Kaltber, 14,460
ft.

The crest of the main range runs continuously at an altitude exceeding
10,000 ft., but even it is surpassed in elevation by the secondary range
to the north, the Bokovoi Khrebet. These two ranges are connected by
more than half a dozen short transverse spurs or necks, inclosing as
many cirques or high cauldron glens. Besides the Bokovoi Khrebet several
other short subsidiary ranges branch off from the main range at acute
angles, lifting up high montane glens between them; for instance, the
two ranges in Svanetia, which divide, the one the river (glen) Ingur
from the river (glen) Tskhenis-Tskhali, and the other the river (glen)
Tskhenis-Tskhali from the rivers (glens) Lechkhum and Racha. Down all
these glens glacier streams descend, until they find an opportunity to
pierce through the flanking ranges, which they do in deep and
picturesque gorges, and then race down the northern slopes of the
mountains to enter the Terek or the Kuban, or down the southern versant
to join the Rion or the Kura. Amongst all these high glens there is a
remarkable absence of lakes and waterfalls; nor are there down in the
lower valleys at the foot of the mountains, as one would naturally
expect in a region so extensively glaciated, any sheets of water
corresponding to the Swiss lakes. In this section of the Caucasus the
loftiest peaks do not as a rule rise on the main range, but in many
cases on the short spurs that link it with the Bokovoi Khrebet and other
subsidiary ranges.

"The central chain of the Caucasus," writes Mr Douglas W.
Freshfield,[1] "consists of a number of short parallel or curved
horseshoe ridges, crowned with rocky peaks and enclosing basins filled
by the _neves_ of great glaciers.... On either side of the main chain
the same succession is repeated, with one important difference. On the
north the schists come first, sometimes rising into peaks and ridges
in a state of ruin ... but more often worn to rolling downs; then the
limestone range--writing-desk mountains that turn their steep fronts
to the central snows; lastly low Cretaceous foothills, that sink
softly into the steppe. But on the south side the crystalline rocks
are succeeded by a broad belt of slates, as to the age of which the
evidence is at present conflicting and the opinion of geologists
divided. East of Adai-khokh, by what seems a strange freak o