Note 8 — Chapter XXIII · GEOGRAPHICAL

The Köshmür Dagh effects a junction with the mountains of the Dersim; and it would almost seem as if that region had refused to submit to the folding pressure, causing the earth waves to work round it and, like the plateau of Azerbaijan, on the east of Armenia, favouring fracture rather than subordination in any complete sense to the general structural laws.8 Yet I cannot doubt that the Dersim should be included within the limits of the country which forms the subject of the present enquiry. The name appears to be applied more strictly to the mountainous region lying to the east of the upper reaches of the Muzur Su, between that river and the town of Kighi Kasaba. But it may be used to embrace also the country to the south of the Merjan-Muzur Dagh, as far west as the great bend of the Western Euphrates and up to the right bank of the Murad on the south. Separated from the important Turkish military station at Erzinjan by a range of mountains covered with snow during six months in the year, it slopes gradually towards the river on its southern confines, well wooded in many parts, abounding in minerals, but broken and rugged especially in the northern and eastern districts. The original home of an Armenian population, who probably entered their historical seats from the west, it is dotted over with the ruins of Armenian churches, monasteries and villages, and is mainly but sparsely inhabited by Kizilbash Kurds.9 The natural boundary between Armenia and Asia Minor is the course of the Western Euphrates between the town of Kemakh, the burial-place of the Armenian Arsakid kings, and its passage through Taurus below Keban-Maden. North of the Euphrates the line may be drawn in a more or less arbitrary manner from above Egin to the mountains of the northern peripheral region.