400 M. F. du Bois o?i the Geological Phenomena of the 



still corresponds that long depression, under the name of Colchis 

 and Georgia, which skirts the southern acclivity of the Caucasus. 

 To the south of this depression, the traveller, continues M. du 

 Bois, finds himself in a labyrinth of volcanic amphitheatres, ana- 

 logous to those which are seen upon the surface of the moon, 

 and which here, crowding upon each other, fill the whole space 

 between the Caspian and the Black Sea. In traversing the peaks 

 of Ketedagh and Kiskala, the volcanic amphitheatre of the Lake 

 Sevang is seen, elevated 5000 above the level of the ocean. It 

 is quite surrounded with volcanos, and by jets of various trap- 

 J"ocks and porphyries, which yield a small streamlet during the 

 spring months, but which dries up during the rest of the year. 

 This water is fresh, as is that also of the lake, whose dimen- 

 sions, according to the late Russian trigonometrical survey, is 

 15 leagues long (French), 8 broad, with an area of 78 square 

 leagues. 



To the north-west of. this volcanic amphitheatre lies another, 

 viz. that of Somkhdtij, where are found those beds of lava and 

 obsidian, which have their source in the mountains of Trialethi, 

 and which have almost surrounded the Kram and the Alghet. 



To the south-west of the Lake Sevang, as if to proclaim in ex- 

 press terms what now is, and what formerly was, you pass from 

 a vast amphitheatre filled with an immense mass of water, to the 

 vast central amphitheatre of Armenia, now emptied of its fluid 

 contents. The Kiotangdagh, the Agmangan, the Naltapa, and 

 many other craters and volcanic cones, separate these two am- 

 phitheatres ; whilst the great Ararat, with an absolute height of 

 16,254 feet (French), the small Ararat, whose height is 12,162, 

 the Sinak, and the Takhaltou to the south, and the Alaghez, 

 12,000 feet high, to the north-west, finish with their imposing 

 cones the rest of that superb garland of extinct volcanos, whose 

 agency has assisted in filling the basin of central Armenia or 

 Ararad. Over all its circumference, nothing is to be seen but 

 black and gray lava currents, with pumice or obsidian, along 

 with scoriae and basalt or trass, intermixed with porphyries and 

 melaphyres. 



In passing from the banks of the Araxes to those of the Kour, 

 you encounter the volcanic amphitheatre of the high Kour or 



