Note 14 — Chapter XXIII · GEOGRAPHICAL

The tendency to a strong-pronounced plateau country is in Armenia, and especially in the south-western territories, independent of volcanic action. Hermann Abich aptly describes the effect of this tendency upon the mountain masses when he speaks of their constant, nearly horizontal summit line.14 Yet the heights which elicited this appreciation belong to the system west of Bingöl, and are mainly composed of stratified rocks. Horizontality is the prevailing characteristic of the outlines on the north of the series of plains from Pasin in the east to Erzinjan in the west. Those outlines belong to a block of elevated land from over 9000 to about 8000 feet above the sea. Lavas have accentuated the feature in the case of the border heights of Pasin (Ch. VIII. p. 193, Fig. 163); but when, further west, the barrier consists of limestones and old igneous rocks, the same appearance of a flat-topped mass, representing a higher stage of the plateau region, is only varied by some beautiful shapes emerging upon the sky-line, such as the Cretaceous peaks of Akhbaba and Jejen. If you draw a section between the western extremity of the plain of Mush against Taurus and the maze of valleys which feed the Chorokh on the north of Erzerum, the true character of the land will be exhibited in a striking manner. You will commence with a level plain of immense extent from west to east and with an average elevation of 4200 feet. Proceeding northwards, you scale a wall of 8000 feet, only to find yourself upon a platform almost as flat as a billiard-table, over which the track leads without much change in level for a distance of many miles. This stage breaks off upon the north to a little plain even as water, lying in the lap of an extensive depression of not more than 5000 feet. You cross the depression with a parapet of 8400 to over 9000 feet closing the landscape with gigantic cliffs before your eyes. It is the edge of the Central Tableland. The journey is long from this, its southern margin, to the corresponding rim upon the north—water-worn downs with an average altitude of over 7000 feet. After registering heights, always on the level, of about 9000 feet, a descent is made to the vast expanse of the Erzerum plain (5700 feet). The mass which rises on the north of that plain contains the sources of the Western Euphrates and leads over to the deep valleys which sustain the Chorokh. It is flat-topped, and attains a level of about 9000 feet.