Note 1 — Chapter IX · ERZERUM

The wall on the north of the plain is scarcely less impenetrable, though Nature has cloven it almost through by the defile known as the Gurgi Boghaz, or Georgian gates, down which flows the infant stream of the Euphrates and is carried the road from Olti. But the portion of the Russian possessions from which it leads are mountainous and poor in supplies, and the narrows are blocked on the Turkish side by modern fortifications. In a geographical and geological sense this northern barrier corresponds to that on the south of the depression. A plateau-like character is not one of its least pronounced features—a feature which is presented with startling fidelity in the outline on the north of the plain of Pasin, where the heights are called Kargabazar (Fig. 163, p. 193). West of the Gurgi Boghaz they are broken into peaks, of which the most symmetrical is the beautiful cone of Sheikhjik—a constant source of admiration to an inhabitant of Erzerum. It consists of a mass of trachyte which has welled up from the middle of a crater.1 As these heights extend westwards they have been less subjected to eruptive disturbances; and the fine landmarks of the Akhbaba Dagh, the Jejen Dagh and the Kop Dagh are composed of non-volcanic rocks. But these eminences serve to accentuate the prevailing flatness of the outline, which remains the outline of a block of tableland. Of little comparative width, this mass declines upon the north to the valley of the Chorokh.