Note 4 — Chapter XXI · GEOGRAPHICAL

But to return to our plains and mountains—the country which we may still call Armenia takes its place as an integral member of the system of tablelands, buttressed by mountain ranges, which extends from the Hindu Kush to the Mediterranean Sea. It is not separated by any important natural frontier from Persia on the east or from Asia Minor on the west. Moreover most of the characteristics which are found in either of these neighbours are prevalent in Armenia to a greater or a lesser degree. The stratified rocks include the later Palæozoic, the Cretaceous, Eocene and Miocene series; and these extend across the whole system. The salt deposits of Miocene age which are spread so widely over Persia are not among the least remarkable of the surface features of Armenia; although they have not produced that widespread devastation which attends the extension of the great salt deserts over the Persian plateau.4 In Armenia they are friendly to man, providing him with one of his necessaries; and the various salt works, known in Turkey under the name of tuzla or salt pans, have been exploited from immemorial times. Considerable depressions of the surface of the highlands are phenomena common to all three countries; and the same may be said of the volcanoes which are dominant in Armenian landscapes, but are not wholly absent from the contiguous territories on either side. All participate in the benefits of a southern climate, and are exempted by their elevation above sea-level from the excesses of a southern sun. Slowly-flowing rivers threading vast plains, mountains which determine districts rather than states; a natural penury of vegetation, enhanced by the depredations of countless goats, but perhaps balanced in the eyes of the traveller by the beauty of the land-forms—such are some among the many impressions which may be derived in various degrees from a visit to any of the individual members of the group.