KASBEK (Georgian, Mkin-vari; Ossetian, Urs-khokh)  , one of the chief summits of the Caucasus, situated in 42° 42' N. and 44 30' E., 7 M. as the crow flies from a station of the same name on the high road to Tiflis . Its altitude is 16,545 ft . It rises on the range which runs north of the main range (main water-parting), and which is pierced by the gorges of the Ardon and the Terek . It represents an extinct volcano, built up of trachyte and sheathed with lava, and has the shape of a double cone, whose base lies at an altitude of 5800 ft . Owing to the steepness of its slopes, its eight glaciers cover an aggregate surface of not more than 8 sq. m., though one of them, Maliev, is 36 m. long . The best-known glacier is the Dyevdorak, or Devdorak, which creeps down the north-eastern slope into a gorge of the same name, reaching a level of 7530 ft . At its eastern foot runs the Georgian military road through the pass of Darial (7805 ft.) . The summit was first climbed in 1868 by D . W . Freshfield, A . W . Moore, and C .

Tucker, with a Swiss guide . Several successful ascents have been made since, the most valuable in scientific results being that of Pastukhov (1889) and that of G . Merzbacher and L . Purtscheller in 1890 . Kasbek has a great literature, and has left a deep mark in Russian poetry . See D . W . Freshfield in Proc . Geog . Soc . (November 1888) and The Exploration of the Caucasus (2nd ed., 2 vois., 1902) ; Hatisian's " Kazbek Glaciers " in Izvestia Russ . Geog .

Soc . (

xxiv., 1888); Pastukhov in Izvestia of the Caucasus Branch of Russ . Geog . Soc . (x . 1, 1891, with large-scale map) .