Note 5 — Chapter XXI · GEOGRAPHICAL

Just as on the west we were constrained to draw the natural frontier inwards from the spine of the Pontic range, so on the east the next successors of the Trialethian ridges lie outside the proper boundary of the Armenian plains. A glance at the map will show that a dislocation of the natural features has taken place in this region. The inner arc, so clearly defined on the one side by the Pontic chain and on the other by the Shah Dagh, overlooking Lake Gökcheh, has snapped during the process of bending over; and the survivors of the catastrophe, the ridges which obstruct the Khram and the Somketian mountains, are constrained to play a subordinate part. The water-parting and principal elevation is composed of volcanoes, reared in a meridional direction. What an impressive analogy to the phenomena on the side of the Black Sea! These volcanoes pursue two lines, one line close behind the other, and the outer or more easterly far the longer of the two. It is the outer series, known as the Gori Mokri, or wet mountains, that constitute the border of the Armenian highlands on this side. The traveller who journeys westwards from the plateau of Zalka (5000 feet) up the elevated valley of the river Kzia to the little upland plain of the same name (7000 feet)5 will be treading on the dividing line between the folded mountains of the Trialethian system and the meridional volcanic series. On his left hand he will admire the shapely cone of Tawkoteli (9211 feet), which constitutes the most northerly of these volcanic elevations. The barrier is continued southwards through the Samsar Dagh (10,770 feet) to the Daly Dagh; and thence along the eastern shore of the lonely lake of Toporovan (6875 feet) to the dual crown of Agrikar (9765 feet) and to the conical summit of the Emlekli Dagh (10,016 feet). The sequence ends in the heights of Karakach (over 10,000 feet), of which the southerly extension is interrupted by the latitudinal ridges of Aglagan and Shishtapa. But the border is protracted along the parting of the waters into the westerly extremities of the Pambak chain.