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PERSIA 193 PERSIA of Foch as generalissimo of all the Allied forces, he placed the American army at his disposal. During the war he worked in close association with the French gen- eral, and on his return to the United States received a great popular welcome. Toward the end of the war French, Ital- ian, British, and American honors were showered upon him. Sept, 4, 1919, con- firmed by Senate as General of the Armies of the United States. PERSIA (Persian Iran), an extensive country of Asia, bounded on the N. by the Caspian Sea, the Transcaspian and Transcaucasian provinces of Russia; S. mountains appear to be a confused heap of hills piled upon hills, in grand but indefinite order; while each individual hill appears a mass of gray rock reared block on block, or starting in huge bowlders abruptly from the face of the plains or plateaux. The plains, again, are vast naked steppes, destitute of trees or foliage ; and it is only on the margin of water courses, or the banks of rivers, that either villages or vegetation of any abundance are found. The provinces, however, along the S. and W. margin of the Caspian are an excep- tion to the rest of the country, and pre- sent some of the most beautiful and f ruit- TEMPLE AT URUMIAH, PERSIA by Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean; E. by Russian territory, Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and W. by Asiatic Turkey. Its length obliquely from N. W. to S. E. is 1,500 miles; area, about 628,000 square miles. Pop. about 10,000,000. Topography. — On the N. W. and S., several lofty mountain ranges — some of considerable length, others short and abrupt — intersect the land in many direc- tions, the center of the country consist- ing in general of a vast plain or table- land. The lowest or most level portions of the country lie along the bed of the Tigris and the shore of the Persian Gulf. Persia possesses many extensive plains and barren deserts, and the interior is generally bare, bleak, and arid. The ful pictures of richness and abundance to be found in Persia. It has been com- puted that barely a third of the entire kingdom is fit for cultivation; and, though husbandry is well attended to, and the advantages of copious irriga- tion are thoroughly understood, so little encouragement is given by the state to agriculture that but a small part of the capable soil is tilled. The most impor- tant rivers are the Aras, Murghab or Bendemir, Atrek, Sefid-Rud, and the Tigris. The lakes of most note are Uru- miah, or Shalu, Bakhtegan, and Mah- digla; from these, and from minor streams and bodies of water, an elaborate system of irrigation is effected all over the cultivated grounds, while vast sub-