It is a misleading, nay, a false conception of natural features to distribute the surface of the plateau region into a number of distinct geographical units. That is a method which is favoured by Russian sciolists with political connections in their endeavour to confuse the essential unity of a country which Russia has not yet fully absorbed. Enter this region where you will and with the eyes of any qualified traveller, the same or similar impressive characteristics will at once appeal to the mind. The German scientist Koch has well described these idiosyncrasies as they may be observed from the marginal districts on the west. After a long and laborious climb from the valley of Ardanuch (1800 feet) to the summit of the pass which leads to Ardahan (at least 7000 feet), he was astonished to observe that instead of a rounded ridge, descending with more or less abruptness to lower levels on the further side, the elevation upon which he stood was continued towards the east by the gentle slope of a lofty plateau. “Here was the commencement,” he says, “of the plateau which slopes away from the pass, and which is usually called the Armenian plateau.” The same traveller journeyed back into the Chorokh region from the highlands of Göleh on the south of Ardahan. On this occasion he crossed the water-parting at the Kanly Dagh between Ardahan and Olti. He tells us that it consists of a narrow ridge with red, porphyritic rocks. He describes the double prospect from the summit, with its contrast of forms and impressions. On the one side, towards the Kur, a scarcely perceptible incline, forming upland valleys after a descent of only some 1500 feet, and leading over to vague and vaulted heights. On the other, in the direction of Olti, rent mountains, gaping ravines—nowhere a gentle, convex shape. Where he was placed the climate was raw, even in early September, and scarcely tempered by a southern sun. Deep down, and far away, they could see the river of Olti, winding like a snake through a maze of sheltered valleys.[8] The language in which Herrmann Abich describes his impressions, coming from the side of Georgia up the valley of the Akstafa, and reaching the pass (7355 feet) over the eastern marginal heights between the village of Bekant and the town of Alexandropol, is not dissimilar to that of Koch. He speaks of the strong contrast between the physical characteristics of the plateau region before him and those of the peripheral mountains he was leaving behind. He describes the prevailing horizontality of the land-forms which he overlooked, extending to the limits of sight. In another place he alludes to the lofty, rim-like elevation with which “the Armenian plateau breaks away to the valleys of Ajara.”[9] I might multiply the instances in which the most competent observers have at the same time recognised the unity of the plateau region and its sharp distinction from the peripheral mountains.
My reader has journeyed with me from the Zikar Pass to Akhaltsykh and Akhalkalaki; from the cañon of the Toporovan river and the basin of the Kur to the streams which constitute the most northerly sources of the Araxes. We have crossed the country from Alexandropol to Erivan, from Erivan to Kars, from Kars to Kagyzman. What an impressive unity underlies the pleasing diversity of the landscapes, which melt into one another as you pass! The partings of the waters are formed by slopes which you perceive with difficulty, so gradual has been the rise and the decline. The territories of Akhaltsykh, Akhalkalaki, Alexandropol, Kars and Ardahan are all bound up together in the distribution of the space, and share features in common to a much greater extent than they are distinguished by local idiosyncrasies. The mountains, of which the outlines are never absent from the landscape—soft, long-drawn, convex shapes—stand on the floor of the tableland, like pieces upon a chessboard, which one may move from square to square. Such are the radial mass of Dochus Punar near Akhaltsykh (over 9500 feet), the two considerable elevations which enclose Lake Chaldir (Akhbaba Dagh, 9973 feet; Kisir Dagh, 10,472 feet), and even the colossal Alagöz (13,436 feet). All are due to volcanic action, quite recent in geological time; and a similar origin belongs to the minor shapes which stud the country like bubbles upon a cooling body. Mountains of this character perform the function of boundary columns between the various districts, great and small. They determine but do not separate. How different in form and function from the folded ridges of the peripheral region, among which a single example of such recent volcanic fabrics could seldom be observed.
If we desire for convenience to partition the plateau region which is Russian Armenia, it falls most naturally into two spheres. The one will comprise a rectangular area, of which the limits on the west and east are the meridional volcanic water-partings from the Soghanlu Dagh to the heights of Sakulaperdi on one side and from the Karakach Dagh to Tawkoteli on the other. The southern boundary of this area will be the cañon of the Araxes from its entrance into Russian territory to below the confluence of the Arpa Chai. Towards the north it includes the districts as far as the Sanislo extension of the Trialethian mountains and the Akhaltsykh-Imeritian border chain. The vast circumference of Alagöz is placed on its south-eastern confines, sending out long feelers towards the left bank of the Arpa Chai, pushing back the mountains of the eastern border and, as it were, propping up the highlands on the north-west. This volcano may be said to lead over to the second sphere, which is for a great part an area of considerable depression, and, as compared with the longitudinal axis and symmetrical shape of its companion, is of irregular form with the greatest length from north-west to south-east. These two spheres are distinguished by features which are sufficiently contrasted to suggest a double image to the mind.
I. I have invited attention to the characteristics which Armenia shares in common with her neighbours in the series of the Asiatic tablelands, Persia on the east and Asia Minor on the west. In the brief survey to which I proceed of the plateau region within the Russian frontier it is necessary at the outset to remark upon some of the idiosyncrasies which distinguish Armenia as a whole from the other members of the series. There is in the first place the far greater elevation, investing her territory with the attributes of a roof to the adjacent countries, from which the waters gather to be precipitated in different directions, and to find their way not only to the Black Sea and the Caspian but also by almost endless stages to the Persian Gulf. The prominent part which has been played by recent volcanic action is another and not less impressive phenomenon. Which of her neighbours could compete with her in this respect? Where could one meet with an Ararat, a Sipan and a Nimrud, to say nothing of an Alagöz and a Bingöl? Both these manifestations are exemplified in a striking manner by the surface features of the rectangular area of the more northerly sphere.
The higher levels of this region are situated at an altitude of some 7000 feet above the sea. I am speaking not of the mountains but of the plains. The uplands which give rise to the Kur in the district of Göleh must come very near to this level. The parting of the waters of the Kur and Araxes near the village of Shishtapa, in an open landscape which may be compared to rolling downs, lies at about 7000 feet. Lake Chaldir has an elevation of 6522 feet; while of the smaller sheets of water Lake Toporovan, with 6876 feet, and the Arpa Göl, with 6706 feet, slightly better this already considerable figure. Where the plateau falls away to the abysmal cañon of the Araxes its edge is nearly 6500 feet high. The town of Ardahan stands at a level of 5840 feet and Kars of 5700 feet. Alexandropol, the principal city, occupies the hollow of a vast basin-like plain; yet it is over 5000 feet above the sea. These elevations are much greater than the average even in Persia, though they are to a certain extent maintained in the frontier province of Azerbaijan and along the edge of the southern peripheral mountains (Tabriz, 4650 feet; but Tehran, 3800 feet; Ispahan, 5070 feet).
The process of gradual uplift of the region by earth movements has been attended by eruptive action, flooding the country with volcanic matter, levelling inequalities of the ground and adding to the height. It has been estimated that the volcanic deposits laid bare in the ravines of the streams which descend from the radial Dochus Punar attain a depth of hundreds of yards.[10] A similar phenomenon is made manifest in the cañon of the Araxes—a cleft which in the neighbourhood of the village of Armutli, west of Kagyzman, has a depth of about 2000 feet and a width on top of at least a mile.[11] There the Miocene sedimentary deposits are overlaid with tuffs and lavas in a belt over 300 yards deep.[12] The points of emission of volcanic matter are in some cases true volcanoes, in others mere pustules or fissures of varying extent. One or other of these features is never absent from the landscape. But the fires are extinct; the viscous seas have long been solid; not a breath of smoke rises from the stark summits which erewhile were wreathed with vapours reflecting the glow of the flames beneath.
The distribution of such shapes due to volcanic agency may often appear arbitrary to an unpractised traveller. Here a group of stately forms resembling the giants of a forest, there a number of insignificant eminences representing the small fry. All will be found to be subject to definite and ascertainable principles, the nature of which becomes clearer at each step forward of scientific research. Perhaps the most interesting principle which we see operative in this region is the outcrop of volcanoes along meridional lines. Such groups pursue a course at right angles to the strike of the rocks within the area of the peripheral mountains. In this connection we may recall the fact that the plateau region with which we are dealing occupies the apex of the bend over of the inner arc. Lines of fracture have been thrown out at right angles to the folding, and eruptive agency has fastened upon these weakened zones of the earth’s crust. Not only may these lines be traced on the west and east of the plateau, of which, indeed, they have largely determined the shape, but also well inside of the marginal districts. In the west we have the Soghanlu group stretching north to Allah Akbar (10,218 feet), whence the direction is continued through the Ueurli Dagh (9055 feet) and the Arzian Dagh to the Chibukh-Naryn-Bashi Dagh. There the volcanic water-parting effects a junction with the Akhaltsykh-Imeritian chain in the ridge of the Sakulaperdi Dagh. In the east we have already followed the row of marginal volcanoes from Tawkoteli to Karakach. Inside these series we recognise this same north-south direction in the Abul-Samsar system, in the mountains on either side of Lake Chaldir, and, lastly, in the connection which we can scarcely err in assuming between the Kisir Dagh, overlooking the westerly shore of this lake, and its neighbour on the north, the Dochus Punar.
Compared with Alagöz and Ararat even the absolute height of these mountains may be termed insignificant. The lofty level of the plains from which their slopes gather robs them of several thousand feet. Great Abul, with an altitude of nearly 11,000 feet, rises from a plain which itself lies at an elevation of 5500 feet. The dome-shaped vaultings of the Soghanlu Dagh near some of the sources of the Kars river are almost entirely shorn of their considerable stature by the height of the adjacent downs. In such surroundings the mountains appear to the eye as little more than hills.
The rivers as a rule flow in deep cañons which they have eroded in the volcanic soil. Their head waters meander over grassy downs. Temperately they thread their way over the uplands or in the cañons, except where blocks of lava may have tumbled into the trough, causing the stream to wreathe and hiss. You pass from district to district either along such natural avenues, with the towering cliffs, for the most part bare, on either hand; or, emerging from the weird scene within the hollow, over the surface of almost limitless plains. Not a tree in the landscape, and only patches of fallow and stubble, without a boundary, with rarely a village discernible from afar.
From time to time you may obtain a glimpse of the peripheral mountains—serrated summits, bush-grown slopes. These contrast to the soft convexities of the forms about you and the vaultings of the volcanic eminences. The surface of the friable soil is devoid of wood and almost of vegetation; and the volcanic matter of which it is composed produces tints of pink and ochre upon which the shadows lie transparent and thin. The rarefied atmosphere of these high regions braces the faculties and sharpens the senses; and whatever clouds may have climbed the barrier of the peripheral ranges are suspended high in the heaven, seldom obscuring the brilliant sun. During winter the land is covered with snow.