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178 ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
It is situated on an extensive plateau, stretching—at heights
varying from 1,500 to 1,900 metres—in an easterly and
north-easterly direction to the foot of the frontier mountains
of Northern Armenia north of Mount Alagoz, and far away
to the west on the other side of the Arpa-chai river, which
cuts through this elevated plain either in a deep valley or a
narrow canyon. On the south-east and south this plain is
bounded by Mount Alagoz and its slopes and offshoots. In
the same way that the whole of the Arax and Sardarabad plain
is dominated by the vast bulk of Mount Ararat in the south,
the mighty volcano Alagoz is here the main feature of the
landscape. With its wide and jagged crater it stretches
upwards to 4,095 metres above sea-level. The middle and
highest part, with steep sides and snowfields on the summit,
is surrounded by a broad belt of more gently sloping moun
tainous country, often with undulating, rounded ridges, and
some volcano-like cones. The whole country consists of
lava masses which once overflowed from Alagoz or the
smaller craters at the sides right down to the Arpa-chai and
the valley of the Arax, except where the ground is composed
of tuff and ashes hurled out of the craters.
Owing to the altitude the climate of this plain is a good
deal colder than that of Erivan, being too cold for cotton
growing; but the fact that the rainfall is greater on the
average than it is on the Arax plain,1 especially in spring and
early summer and above all in May and June, måkes it possible
to grow corn in some parts without artificial irrigation. The
crop is sown in April and reaped in July or August ; but the
harvest is uncertain on account of the frequent droughts.
When artificial irrigation is available it will make an appreciable
difference, and this fertile soil will yield really large crops.
before the main shock came. Large areas of Turkish Armenia have also been
devastated. Fortunately the Shiraksky canal has not, so far as my information
goes, been damaged.
1 The mean annual rainfall is 408 millimetres in Leninakan, 318 millimetres
in Erivan, and 280 millimetres in Echmiadzin. In 1924—a comparatively
dry summer on the Arax plain—the amounts were as follows :
April,
mm.
May.
mm.
lune.
mm.
16
uly.
mm.
.ugust
mm.
6
.eninakan
irivan
ichmiadzin
39
44
42
72
30
18
7
10 2
17 10 2
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