Note 13 — Chapter XXI · GEOGRAPHICAL
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It is a country admirably adapted to grow cereals. The plains through which the Arpa Chai (grain river) eats its way to the Araxes constituted one of the granaries of Armenia in historical times.13 At the present day they have not recovered from the devastations of the Mussulman peoples, and the Russians are jealous of allowing the Armenians a free hand. Extraordinary fertility is induced by the intermixture of the lavas with alluvial or lacustrine deposits. The black earth of the plains about Akhalkalaki is famous14; and the soil in the neighbourhood of Alexandropol derives its richness from the incidence of a peculiar kind of lava side by side with the sediment of a former lake. The southerly extension of these vanished waters is marked by the belt of high ground extending from Alagöz across the plains to the Arpa Chai. The river has forced its way through this elevation between Ani and Magaspert.15