CHARACTERISTICS AND DISTRIBUTION OF LAKES 543 
Lake Van lies in Eastern Anatolia, in Asiatic Turkey, on one of Anatolia, 
the elevated plains separated by mountain ranges, in the volcanic 
district of Van, at a height of about 5200 feet above sea-level, and has 
an area of 2000 square miles. It is 80 miles long and 30 miles broad, 
and over 80 feet deep. The lake is said to be connected with the 
Euphrates through the little lake of Nazik, which lies on the water- 
shed between Lake Van and the river, and sends emissaries to both — 
a rare phenomenon. 
Lake of Gyoljuk, 12 miles long by 2 or 3 miles wide, lies 3 degrees 
west of Lake Van, at an elevation of 4000 feet among the Taurus 
Mountains, between the head- waters of the Euphrates and Tigris 
Rivers. Under present climatic conditions the lake is on the divid- 
ing line between a so-called " normal fresh-water lake with a per- 
manent outlet and a salt lake with no outlet. In years of large rain- 
fall it overflows and forms one of the most remote sources of the 
Tigris, but in drier years the lake has no outflow during the long rain- 
less summer. Its waters contain borax, but the amount is not 
so great as to render the water undrinkable. In former times, 
judging by the evidence furnished by historical accounts and local 
traditions. Lake Gyoljuk appears to have fluctuated in size in the 
same manner and at the same periods as the Caspian Sea, and Ellsworth 
Huntington ^ considers that this gives good ground for believing that 
Turkey has undergone changes in climatic conditions similar to those 
which have afi^ected Central Asia. 
The inland drainage areas of Arabia and Asia Minor (see fig. 64) 
cover an area of about 782,000 square miles. 
Arabia may be roughly divided as to its surface extent into one Arabia, 
third of coast ring and mountains — part barren, part either cultivated 
or capable of cultivation, — another third of central plateau also 
tolerably fertile, and a third of desert intervening between the first 
and second except in the region of Mecca. Surface streams are almost 
wanting even in the more fertile districts, because of the excessive 
evaporation and light and porous quality of the soil. Water is 
obtained for the most part from wells, sometimes 20 or 30 feet deep ; 
but though in the Kaseem valley in the interior it abounds at a depth 
of only a few feet below the ground, and occasionally collects on the 
surface in perennial pools, none of these are large enough to deserve 
the name of lakes. 
In the central and southern portions of the plateau of Asia Minor Western Asia 
the streams either flow into salt lakes, where their waters pass off^" by 
evaporation, or into fresh-water lakes which have no visible outlet. 
In the latter cases the waters find their way by subterranean channels 
beneath the cretaceous limestones of Mount Taurus, and reappear as 
1 The Pulse of Asia, p. 356, London, 1907. 
