Note 13 — Chapter IV · VAN

These phenomena, which are partly attested by the ancient lake terraces and in part suggested by the general structure of the country, belong to an epoch which, if quite modern from the standpoint of the geologist, probably lies beyond the range of the archæologist as well as of the historian. Much the same conditions as at the present day appear to have prevailed during the historical period—a vast sheet of water, deep and translucent, dammed up by the volcanic barrier at its westerly extremity. I think there can be no doubt that the permanent tendency of this sheet of water has been to rise in level. Moreover, all the evidence is to the effect that this tendency has been operative in the case of the other two seas. Dr. Belck has recorded that in the year 1890 during the month of July he came across a little lake at the eastern end of Lake Gökcheh, separated from it by a tongue of land scarcely more than 55 yards broad, and connected with it by a stream descending from the mountains and piercing through the isthmus. On the margin of this shallow lagoon, near the outflow of the stream, he discovered an ancient Armenian graveyard of which the stones were under water. When he returned in August of the following year they were only just dry. His visit coincided with the latest stage of a period of decline; and it seems certain that since the time when the cemetery was constituted the norm about which the fluctuations oscillate had risen in a marked degree. The same traveller draws our attention to the interesting circumstance that the three last lines of the cuneiform inscription of Rusas the First (c. 730–714 B.C.), cut in the face of the rock overlooking that same northern lake, have been almost completely destroyed by the erosion of the waters, although placed just above their level in 1891. It seems incredible that the Vannic king should have engraved his memorial in a situation where it would be exposed to the periodical floods.13 As regards Lake Urmi I need only recall the important discovery of Mr. Günther in 1898. In the islands of that sea he found many species of living animals which could not have crossed the stretch of salt water, amounting to a distance of some 10 miles, that at present separates their homes from the shore. In his opinion the zoology affords conclusive testimony of these islands having been joined to the mainland at no very distant date. Upon one of them he found the skeleton of a wild sheep.14 The evidence which may be collected upon the shores of Lake Van all points in the same direction of a progressive upward tendency.