Note 10 — Chapter XXI · GEOGRAPHICAL

The process of gradual uplift of the region by earth movements has been attended by eruptive action, flooding the country with volcanic matter, levelling inequalities of the ground and adding to the height. It has been estimated that the volcanic deposits laid bare in the ravines of the streams which descend from the radial Dochus Punar attain a depth of hundreds of yards.10 A similar phenomenon is made manifest in the cañon of the Araxes—a cleft which in the neighbourhood of the village of Armutli, west of Kagyzman, has a depth of about 2000 feet and a width on top of at least a mile.11 There the Miocene sedimentary deposits are overlaid with tuffs and lavas in a belt over 300 yards deep.12 The points of emission of volcanic matter are in some cases true volcanoes, in others mere pustules or fissures of varying extent. One or other of these features is never absent from the landscape. But the fires are extinct; the viscous seas have long been solid; not a breath of smoke rises from the stark summits which erewhile were wreathed with vapours reflecting the glow of the flames beneath.