Oct. 31, 1872] 



NATURE 



537 



bl ack lava and scorice extending far up the mountain side, 

 where traces of a large crater were still observable. Above, 

 to a height of full 9,000 feet, towered the granite peaks, and 

 here, reaching down towards the valley, a wide moraine 

 traversed the road. It was mainly composed of volcanic 

 fragments, though mixed with blocks of granite ; and 

 must consequently have been formed at a time when the 

 volcano had not only existed, but had also ceased its 

 action. 



To assure my self of the true character of the phenomenon, 

 I quitted the path and rode up and along the stone-stream 

 to a considerable distance, till in fact my horse could no 

 longer make his footing sure ; and I had fully convinced 

 myself that the moraine was the result of glacial action 

 alone, not of torrents or weather action referable to more 

 recent times. 



Not far on I had to traverse the pass called Keskeem 

 Boughaz, or, the entrance of Keskeem ; this latter being 

 the name given to the district on either side of the lower 

 Chorok valley. The road here reaches an altitude of 

 S,20o feet ; yet is far overtopped by the granite range of 

 Tortoom, even now streaked with perpetual snow, to the 

 south. Here again I observed a large moraine, winding 

 down from the upper ridge ; while the first plateau of 

 Keskeem, about 7,400 feet above sea-level, into which 1 

 next descended, was strewn capriciously with large granite 

 boulders, many ten or more feet in diameter. Another 

 volcanic tract succeeds, where the path winds along a 

 valley hemmed in by gigantic cliffs of black lava, dashed 

 with blood-red porphyritic stains. From this point my 

 track followed a level too low to permit of expecting or of 

 finding any further glacial traces in this region. 



.Summing up the observations made during this stage 

 of my journey, I come to the conclusion that the ice-cap 

 of the north-easterly Anatolian watershed, in post-pliocene 

 times, must have reached downwards, on the northern 

 side of the range at least, to about 7,000 feet above the 

 present sea level ; while some of the glaciers issuing from 

 it descended to about 4,500 feet of the same measurement. 

 In what degree the sea-level of the entire eastern portion 

 of the peninsula has changed — it would seem since the 

 epoch referred to — I shall speak further on. 



Two phenomena only remain to be noticed ; - one, the 

 absence of all organic traces, whether marine or otherwise, 

 in these rocks and strata ; an absence which I have heard 

 remarked on by the few natives capable of observing 

 these things ; another, the frequent presence, in the 

 moraine or glacial belt, of scratched and striated rocks, 

 especially granite. 



Crossing the river, now at its shallowest in the summer 

 season, but still containing, at a distance of a hundred 

 miles from its mouth, as large a body of water as the 

 Thames during high tide at Richmond bridge, my path 

 led to Artween, the chief village-centre of these regions, 

 along the north-western side of the valley ; that is, along 

 the inner slope of the coast range. These Lazistan moun- 

 tains form a very lofty, but comparatively narrow ridge, 

 of great steepness, and ill adapted to the formation of 

 glaciers ; and besides they must have been, even in the 

 glacial epoch, exposed to the comparatively mild atmo- 

 sphere of the great sea, now represented by the Black Sea 

 and the Caspian only, but which then covered so large a 

 portion of what is now Russia. 



Here, however, I again found evident traces of the same 

 cold period, but written in different characters. Not 

 moraines indeed, nor the other analogous appearances in- 

 dicated in the more inland district, but signs of alternating 

 snows and thaws, of weather-change and water-action on 

 a scale much vaster than is possible in the existing con- 

 dition of climate, even were the most rigorous winter, such 

 as now is, to be succetded by the warmest summer. Wide 

 and deep clefts, the work of torrents, yet flowing, but 

 dwindled to comparative insignificance ; great sweeps of 

 shattered rock fragmeats down slopes inaccessible from 



their steepness, due to frosts of a severity unknown at 

 this day, followed by corresponding thaw ; and every 

 mark of climatic disintegration, much beyond, though 

 in kind similar to, that which these crags now 

 undergo. And lastly the water level of the Chorok 

 itself, judging by the eroded shelves and like indications 

 left here and there in the cliffs along its shores, must have 

 been from fifteen to twenty feet above its actual level ; a 

 circumstance which can scarcely be attributed to otheif 

 causes than the melting of great supplies of ice and snow; 

 since there is no reason whatever to suppose that any con- 

 siderable diminution in the forest growth around has 

 taken place from the earliest to the present times. 



That there really was such a difference between the 

 glacial conditions of the Lazistan, or coast mountains, 

 and those of the inland watershed in the epoch alluded 

 to, is in a measure confirmed by their actual state. For 

 though the Lazistan peaks considerably surpass in height 

 those of the southern chain, being some of them above 

 11,000 feet in elevation, whereas the others average from. 

 9,000 to lo.ooo only, yet snow lies all summer through on 

 the latter, much more abundantly than on the former ; 

 while on the other hand the annual quantity of rain and 

 snow that in the winter months of the year fails on the 

 Lazistan mountains is at least the double of what is 

 apportioned to the southern or Armenian chain. A 

 depression of 15^ to 20° centigrade in the average tem- 

 perature of the year, would now to a certainty cover the 

 latter with glaciers, while it would furrow the former with 

 torrents of the first magnitude. 



Leaving the Chorook valley, my road — or track, to 

 speak more properly, for road in our sense of the word 

 there was none — led north-east up to the great water-shed 

 already often mentioned, and which here, turning north- 

 wards also, separates from each other not the Black Sea 

 and Persian Gulf river systems only, but a third also, that 

 of the Caspian. For about forty miles my journey, though 

 passing through a district abounding in other geological 

 phenomena of great interest, yet supplied me with none 

 of the class to which these notes specially refer, for the 

 reason that it lay wholly along valleys and through ravines 

 often below 4,000 feet in sea elevation, and never exceed- 

 ing that height. But at the Karanlik Dagh, or IVIountain 

 of Darkness, so called either from the black and dense 

 fir forests that clothe its sides, or from the thick mists 

 that hang for months along its middle slopes, and at a 

 point as nearly as possible opposite the extreme north- 

 eastern angle of the Black Sea, here about fifty miles 

 distant in a direct line, 1 began at last the ascent of the 

 main ridge, the backbone of the land. While slowly 

 climbing the limestone ledges of the mountain, and at the 

 height of 6,400 feet, I here once more found athwart my 

 way a colossal moraine, formed of worn granite blocks 

 and partly overgrown with forest, descending from an 

 overtopping height, which I afterwards ascertained to be 

 about 8,000 feet. But before we reached it I traversed 

 an intervening ledge, 7,300 feet above the sea, com])osed 

 of granite rocks, worn and marked with unequivocal ice 

 action, though now wholly bare of snow. A valley divided 

 this ridge from the highest of all, that called Penek, 

 up which a difficult track, called the " Egri Yokoosh" or 

 " crooked ascent" — and it well deserved its name — brought 

 us at last, landing us on a cold, undulating granite plateau 

 of 9,000 to 9,500 feet in elevation. Here and there its 

 depressions were scooped out into deep little oval Lakes, 

 full all summer through of clear blue water, and looking 

 the very memorials of vanished ice ; while the gently 

 sloping sides of the plateau itself were strewn with boul- 

 ders of every size and shape, but all granite, seemingly 

 brought there from the higher peaks of the Penek chain, 

 about five miles oft". Nor did these boulders crase to 

 occur, sometimes in greater abundance, sometimes less, 

 till we reached the great basin of Ardahan, near the 

 sources of the Kur, or Cyrus river, here a slender stream, 



