Word Finder - plateaus

definition

A largely level expanse of land at a high elevation; tableland.

definition

A comparatively stable level in something that varies.

definition

An ornamental dish for the table; a tray or salver.

definition

A notable level of attainment or achievement.

definition

To reach a stable level; to level off.

The climate is severe on the plateaus, hot towards the Caspian, and dry everywhere.

The elevated plateaus between these ranges are semiarid and inhospitable, and are covered with extensive saline basins, which become lagoons in the wet season and morasses or dry saltpans in the dry season.

On the plateaus large numbers of cattle, goats and sheep are reared.

Tanganyika has been formed by the subsidence of a long narrow tract of country relatively to the surrounding plateaus, which fall to the lake in abrupt cliffs, some thousands of feet high in places.

The flora of Argentina should be studied according to natural zones corresponding to the physical divisions of the country - the rich tropical and sub-tropical regions of the north, the treeless pampas of the centre, the desert steppes of the south, and the arid plateaus of the north-west.

The largest of all, Great Salt Lake, is maintained by the waters of the Wasatch and associated plateaus.

It consists of a series of plateaus formed of sedimentary rocks which mainly belong to three formations of widely separated ages, and which rest on a platform of granitic and metamorphic rocks.

The range has not so many offshoots as occur on the west side of Lebanon; under its precipitous slopes stretch table-lands and broad plateaus, which, especially on the east side looking towards the steppe, steadily increase in width.

In the high plateaus are the Shat-el-Gharbi or Western Shat, the Shat-el-Shergui or Eastern Shat, the ZarhezGharbi and the Zarhez-Shergui, the Shat-el-Hodna and a number of others.

On the plateaus the temperature passes from one extreme to the other, and rain seldom falls.

At the least there should be some consideration of four separate systems of discovery - the Eastern, in which Chinese and Japanese explorers acquired knowledge of the geography of Asia, and felt their way towards Europe and America; the Western, in which the dominant races of the Mexican and South American plateaus extended their knowledge of the American continent before Columbus; the Polynesian, in which the conquering races of the Pacific Islands found their way from group to group; and the Mediterranean.

The Lap- surface of the North American arch is sagged down- worth's wards in the middle into a central depression which fold= lies between two long marginal plateaus, and these theory.

Taking their rise on the plateau formation, or in its outskirts, they flow first along lofty longitudinal valleys formerly filled with great lakes, next they cleave their way through the rocky barriers, and finally they enter the lowlands, where they become navigable, and, describing wide curves to avoid here and there the minor plateaus and hilly tracts, they bring into watercommunication with one another places thousands of miles apart.

Abich (Sur la structure et la geologic du Daghestan, 1862), the successive folds of Jurassic limestones and slates, all nearly parallel to the Caucasus, which form lofty, narrow plateaus.

Spurs from the Drakensberg, at right angles to the main range, cross the plateaus.

Secondary ranges with heights of 5000 and more feet are numerous, whilst lofty isolated mountains rise from the plateaus.

The earliest record of glass-making in the Low Countries consists in an account of payments made in 1453-1454 on behalf of Philip the Good of Burgundy to " Gossiun de Vieuglise, Maitre Vorrier de Lille " for a glass fountain and four glass plateaus.

The rearing of these animals requires much patience and skill, in which no one has been able to match the Indian breeders of the Andean plateaus.

Mr Gardiner regarded these banks as plateaus rising to different elevations beneath the surface of the sea from a main plateau rising steeply from the great depths of the Indian Ocean.

The geological formations thus exposed show that the plateaus are composed of a base of eruptive material, overlaid by enormous deposits of reddish sandstones, conglomerates and quartzites, exposed in parts to a depth of 2000 feet.

The general elevation of the country is about 500 ft., but the hills and plateaus which form the prominent feature in the scenery of Luxemburg range from 1200 to 1500 ft.

The peculiar plants of the Rocky Mountain plateaus penetrate into the Trans-Pecos region, which the north Mexican flora, including the Agave lecheguilla, a valuable commercial fibre, is found along the Rio Grande.

In formation it resembles the limestone Alps of Tirol and there are on its elevated plateaus a number of doline or funnel-shaped depressions into which the melted snow and the rain sink.

The geography of the Western province includes many interesting features, the in many ways peculiar Albert Nyanza (q.v.), the great snowy range of Ruwenzori (q.v.), the dense Semliki, Budonga, Mpanga and Bunyaraguru forests, the salt lakes and salt springs of Unyoro and western Toro, the innumerable and singularly beautiful crater lakes of Toro and Ankole, the volcanic region of Mfumbiro (where active and extinct volcanoes rise in great cones to altitudes of from 11,000 to nearly 15,000 ft.), and the healthy plateaus of Ankole, which are in a lesser degree analogous in climate and position, and the Nandi plateau on the east of Victoria Nyanza.

Still farther east, the plateaus of the Finisterre ranges are highly cultivated and artificially irrigated by a comparatively fair people.

Its surface is diversified by several plateaus, those of Haanhof and of the Livonian Aa having an average elevation of 400 to 700 ft., while several summits reach Boo to loon ft.

The edges of the plateaus are gapped by deep valleys; the hilly tract between the Dvina and its tributary the Livonian Aa has received, from its picturesque narrow valleys, thick forests and numerous lakes, the name of "Livonian Switzerland."

Thus there is here a gap, easily traversed, across the Appalachian mountains and plateaus to the more level and fertile plains beyond.

The dominating features of south New Zealand are not ferny plateaus or volcanic cones, but stern chains of mountains.

The surface of this plain, however, ranges from level river valleys in the east to irregular plateaus broken by buttes and scored by canons in the west.

The Appalachian belt includes, with the ranges enumerated above, the plateaus sloping southward to the Atlantic Ocean in New England, and south-eastward to the border of the coastal plain through the central and southern Atlantic states; and on the north-west, the Allegheny and Cumberland plateaus declining toward the Great Lakes and the interior plains.

The Paleozoic sediments, ranging in age from Cambrian to Permian, occupy the Great Valley, the Valley Ridges and the plateaus still farther west.

Igneous intrusions consist only of unimportant dikes of trap. The most striking and uniformly characteristic geologic feature of the mountains is their internal structure, consisting of innumerable parallel, long and narrow folds, always closely appressed in the eastern part of any crosssection (Piedmont Plateau to Great Valley), less so along a central zone (Great Valley and Valley Ridges), and increasingly open on the west (Allegheny and Cumberland Plateaus).

For a century the Appalachians were a barrier to the westward expansion of the English colonies; the continuity of the system, the bewildering multiplicity of its succeeding ridges, the tortuous courses and roughness of its transverse passes, a heavy forest and dense undergrowth all conspired to hold the settlers on the seaward-sloping plateaus and coastal plains.

By 1755 the obstacle to westward expansion had been thus reduced by half; outposts of the English colonists had penetrated the Allegheny and Cumberland plateaus, threatening French monopoly in the transmontane region, and a conflict became inevitable.

The accumulations of lava gave rise to the plateaus which form almost the whole interior of the county.

The Allegheny ridges have only a thin stony soil; but good limestone, sandstone, shale and alluvial soils, occur in the valleys and in some of the plateaus of the extreme west.

On the mountains and the high plateaus the winter is often very severe; snow lies for six months on the higher peaks of the Kabyle mountains.

The chief wealth of the Arab tribes of the plateaus consists in their immense flocks of sheep. The horses and mules of Algeria are noted; and the native cattle are an excellent stock on which to graft the better European varieties.

The flora of the high plateaus consists chiefly of grasses, notably various kinds of alfa or esparto, and aromatic herbs.

Its market is attended by Kabyles, Arabs of the plateaus and people from the Sahara.

From Arzeu a line goes south across the plateaus and crossing the Ksur range at a height of 4211 ft.

The middle portion of the state is occupied by high plateaus, about 4000 ft.

From mountain heights along its eastern border the surface of Kentucky is a north-western slope across two much dissected plateaus to a gracefully undulating lowland in the north central part and a longer western slope across the same plateaus to a lower and more level lowland at the western extremity.

The denuded mountain slopes and plateaus of southern Mexico are due to the prehistoric inhabitants who cleared away the tropical forest for their Indian corn fields, and then left them to the erosive action of the tropical rains and subsequent occupation by coarse grasses.

Guatemala is naturally divided into five regions - the lowlands of the Pacific coast, the volcanic mountains of the Sierra Madre, the so-called plateaus immediately north of these, the mountains of the Atlantic versant and the plain of Peten.

The Cordilleran system on the western side of the continent is lofty, broad and complicated, with heavy forests near the north-west coast, but elsewhere with trees only on the higher ranges below the Alpine region, and with treeless or desert intermont valleys, plateaus and basins, very arid in the south-west.

The Cordilleran Region.From the western border of the Great Plains to the Pacific coast, there is a vast elevated area, occupied by mountains, plateaus and intermont plains.

The intermont plains are at all altitudes from sea-level to 4000 ft.; the plateaus from 5000 to 10,000 ft.; and the mountains from 8000 to 14,000 ft.

There is also a province of plateaus between the central part of the Basin ranges and the southern part of the Rocky Mountains.