THE MEDITERRANEAN NATURALIST 
273 
nected with it. Armenia is, moreover, embellished 
by a number of lakes, among which the most 
noticeable are Lake Sevan, with an islet contain- 
ing three monasteries in Armenian style; Lake 
Urumivah, in Persian Armenia; , and especially 
Lake Van, which receives the waters of some 
forty streams, and nourishes an immense number 
of herrings, a true manna foi the people of the 
shore. With regard to climate and produce, Ar- 
menia is a kind of microcosm. Generally speak- 
ing, the northern portion recalls the arctic zone, 
the central portion assumes the aspect of the tem- 
perate zone, and the part which borders on Meso- 
potamia is as warm as a country situated in the 
torrid zone. Its produce is also similar. The 
valleys are extremely fertile, and present a very 
rich flora, all kinds of grains and cereals, rice, 
cotton, hemp, flax, gall-nuts, madder, tobacco, 
and delicious fruit, including the apricot, the 
primus Armeniam of the Romans. On the hills 
grow magnificent grapes, from which is obtained 
an excellent wine, the direct descendant of that 
wine which affected the head of our good Pa- 
triarch Noah. The mountains are not much 
wooded, but covered with luxuriant pastures, 
suitable for the breeding of cattle and the rear- 
ing of horses. The prophet Ezekiel tells us that 
the Syrians received their horses from Armenia, 
in the same way as the Hebrew's for a long time 
obtained their mules from that country. Xeno- 
phon relates that this country supplied a contin- 
gent of 4,000 horse to the King of Assyria at the 
time of his war with the sovereign of Hie Medes. 
According to Appian, when Mithridates went to 
take refuge with Tigranes the Great, King of 
Armenia, the latter at once levied 50,000 horse as 
well as 200,000 foot soldiers, and afterwards 35,000 
horse with 70,000 foot, Hammer quotes the fact 
that Pletboum, King of Armenian Cilicia, pro- 
vided a contingent of 12,000 horse with 40,000 
foot to his Tartar ally, Hulagu, at the time of the 
lattehs expedition against Persia. These few fi- 
gures bear testimony to a great abundance of 
horses in ancient and mediaeval times, a source of 
wealth which a wise administration could restore 
to the countries whose natives formerly taught 
the Romans some novel ideas in the art of breed- 
ing horses. What is especially abundant in Ar- 
menia is bread and meat. The corn is of a supe- 
rior quality, and it w r as from Armenia that the 
Romans received their provision of salt meat. 
“At the present day still,” writes M. de Tchihat 
chef in his “Bosphorus and Constantinople,” “the 
salt meat of a Kaisaria and Angora is celebrated 
in the peninsula under the name of paster mu. It 
chiefly consists of mutton, which is of a splendid 
quality, and probably superior to all the beef 
produced by Europe and the United States of 
America.” Van has its delicate white honey, and 
Moush its sweet manna which the peasant women 
gather from the leaves of the treesl The ancient 
province of Vasbouragan is still rich in ermine , an 
alteration of Armenia , the name of the country 
from which the fur of this animal was originally 
obtained, and especially in the so called Angora 
cats and goats The cochineal is met with at the 
foot of Mount Ararat, and everywhere are mines 
of copper, iron, lead, silver, sulphur, arsenic, 
coal, even of gold, as rich as they are un- 
touched while the quarries are lined with marble 
and jasper, and the rock-salt, alum, naphta, and 
the famous Armenian bole are only waitin on the 
surface for any one who will take the trouble to 
pick them up. Here, then, is a country not so 
very far from Cyprus, where some of those En- 
glishmen ought to emigrate who place the immen- 
sity of the seas between them and their mother 
country. By transferring their money and energy 
to Armenia, the sons of Great Britain would only 
have to choose among the thousand-and-one bran- 
ches which commend themselves to their activity 
in a country, where, as yet, scarcely a single factory 
chimney smokes, nor has a single railroad been 
opened by the fatalist government of the Turks, 
Persians, and even Russians, who have partitioned 
this Asiatic Poland. 
The Relationship of the Structure of 
Rocks to the conditions of their 
Formation. 
By H. J. Johnston La vis, m.d.,f.g.s., 
For the present, however, we may state the 
divisions as follow: — 
1. Ejection of vitreous froth, which 'rapidly soli- 
difies, as pumice; all the minerals that occur crys- 
tallized are of plutonic separation, as sanidine, 
biotite, amphibole, &c. 
