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.
