46 GEOLOGICAL MEMOIRS. 



crater. Finally, 1 6 wersts further rises the remarkable crater of ele- 

 vation of the Klissalidagh, the last and greatest system of the whole 

 series, with its remarkable mountain forms, the highest point of which, 

 according to my measurements, is 9738 French feet above the sea. 

 At the Klissalidagh commences the deposit of a tuff and trachytic 

 conglomerate of vast thickness, by which the slope of the table-land 

 is continued to the Araxes 73 wersts farther. At the southern foot 

 of the Klissalidagh, a broad valley, 962 feet deep, has been excavated in 

 this tufp formation, where, at a distance of 1 5 wersts from the summit 

 of the mountain, is Giiriis, the chief town of the district of Sangysur, 

 on the river of the same name, at an elevation of 3900 feet, surrounded 

 by the fantastic forms of pointed conical pillars of tuff, partly attached 

 to the steep sides of the valley, and partly forming singular and iso- 

 lated groups*. 



Now if we draw a straight line from the summit of the Klissalidagh 

 at an angle of 58° W. of the meridian, and extend it to the Caspian 

 and Black Seas, it will strike, at a distance of 176 wersts to the S.E., 

 the summit of the Alaghez. In this direction the line passes close to 

 the extinct central volcano of the Daralaghez called Dalychtappa f , 

 the crater of which has a circumference of 1960 paces, and an abso- 

 lute height of 8042 French feet ; it then strikes at a distance of 75 

 wersts from its commencement the already-mentioned Karantych- 

 dagh, and subsequently in succession the volcanic cones Abul Hassar, 

 8596 feet high, on the upland of Agridja, with a crater-lake — the 

 already-mentioned Akdagh — the Scham Iram or Hadis, and the vol- 

 canic hill Kiotan-dagh, 7111 French feet above the sea, both the latter 

 abounding in obsidian and pumice-stone, on the N.W. declivity of 

 the Agmangan hills 20 wersts from Erivan. Lastly, the above-men- 

 tioned line before reaching the Alaghez also cuts through the Karni- 

 jerach (Cracked-Belly) . The construction of this flat mountain, which 

 the Tartar language so expressively and figuratively describes, renders 

 it an interesting modification of the craters of elevation in Armenia. 

 The Karnijarach rises to an absolute height of 7913 French feet, com- 

 manding a stony and sterile tract of dolerite, 20 wersts above Erivan, 

 1 6 wersts in breadth and about 20 in length, between the rivers Sanga 

 and Abarran. The further extension of the line to the N.W. brings 

 us to the great crater-lake of the Tschyldir group with a surface of 

 116 square wersts, and resembling in a geological point of view the 

 lakes of Bracciano and Montefiascone in the Papal States, and then 

 over the summits of the great volcanic frontier mountains of the mo- 

 dem province of Achalzik in the old country of the Lazes and the 

 Chalybes. These mountains, which enclose the great source of cold 

 of the Armenian highlands, and have been celebrated from the ear- 

 liest time for their ungenial climate, are best observed from the heights 

 of the Meski mountain chain, behind Abastuman. Amongst them, 

 beginning from the S.E., the Dochuspungar, the Ardagandagh, the 



* Compare this with the remarkable hills described in Hamilton's Asia Minor, 

 vol. ii. p. 250, in the valleys of Utch Hissar and Urgub. 

 t Delik-tepe'h (Hole-hill). 



