352 CLIMATIC CONDITIONS OF THE GLACIAL EPOCH. 



of the valle3's of the Iiig-our, the Riou, and the Liakhva ; still, in spite of the 

 number and importance of tlie moraines of Upper Suanetia, they do not 

 appear to have been very extensive on the south slope of the Caucasus. 

 The northern side is much richer in erratic deposits."* 



There is some difference of opinion between the various explorers of the 

 Caucasus as to the importance of the Glacial epoch in that range ; but it 

 appears quite clear that the ancient glaciers had, all through the chain, a 

 considerably less extensive development than those of tlie Alps at the same 

 period. It is also certain that the ice masses of the Caucasus were entirely 

 subordinated, both as to their position and movement, to the present topog- 

 i^aphy of the chain. f 



In regard to glaciation in that part of Asia which lies south and west of 

 the Caucasus, namely in Ai'menia and Asia Minor, there is little to be said. 

 Mount Ararat, being 17,000 feet in elevation, would naturally be a point of 

 interest in this connection. The snow line on this grand volcanic mass rises 

 to nearly 14,000 feet, a remarkable fact as contrasted with its position on the 

 Caucasus and the Alps, but easily understood when we consider the extreme 

 dryness of the region, where the rain-fall amounts to only ten or twelve 

 inches in a year. There is only one true glacier on this mountain, namelj', 

 in a deep, dark valley on its northeast side. This mass of ice is described hy 

 Mr. Bryce as being nearly a mile long, and from 200 to 400 yards wide, its 

 lower end coming down to about 8,000 feet above the sea-level. The slopes 

 above the snow line on the shady side of the mountain are mostly "covered with 

 glittering fields of unbi'oken neve, while on the steeper southeast declivity 

 the snow appears chieflj' in vast longitudinal beds, filling the depressions be- 

 tween the great rock ridges that run down the mountain, giving- it, as Parrot 

 has remarked, the appearance from a distance of a beautiful pointed collar 

 of dazzling white material on a dark ground." $ The whole of this descrip- 

 tion of the condition and appearance of the .snow masses and ice on Mount 

 Ararat would answer almost exactly for Mount Shasta in California, except 

 that the latter is about 2,500 feet lower than its Oriental brother. 



* Eecherches Geologiques dans la Partie Centrale de la Chaine dii Caucase, Genere-Bale-Lyon, 1875, p. 101. 



t See Favre, 1. c, p. 66 ; also Fveslifield, The Central Caucasus and the Baahan, Loudon, 1S69, p. 450 ; Abich, 

 in the various comnuuiications in the Bulletin de la Societe Iraperiale des Naturalistes de Moscou, and in the Bul- 

 letin de I'Academie Iraperiale des Sciences de St. Petershoui'g, especially Tome X. 1S77, Uber die Lage der 

 Sclineegriinzfi, und die Gletscher der Gegenwart im Kaukasus ; also Tchihatchefl', Asie Miiieure, 4"^ Partie, 

 Geologic, III. p. 486. 



J James Bryce, in Transcaucasia and Ararat, Loudon, 1877, p. 222. 



