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190 ARMENIA AND THE NEAR EAST
in these regions may be sufficient to neutralize the water
coming into it is proved by the existence in various places of
many small salt lakes without any outlet ; while a couple of
hundred kilometres to the south-west and south are the two
large salt lakes, Van and Urmia, 1,718 and 1,250 metres
respectively above the sea, and therefore not much lower
than Lake Sevan.
According to measurements recorded for the years 1914
-1917 the amount of water annually carried away by the river
Zanga from the lake during these four years varied between
29-5 million cubic metres in 191 7 and 118 million in 191 5,
equivalent to a flow of water averaging between 0-4 and 3-75
cubic metres of water a second. This means that only about
one-twentieth, or less, of the water that descends over the
whole area of precipitation runs out of the lake, provided that
the average rainfall is not in excess of the amounts recorded
at the stations concerned. The average amount of water
carried away by the Zanga may, perhaps, be put at about
2 cubic metres a second ; but at times when the lake is at its
lowest—especially in winter—no water at all runs away.
After looking at the dam works we drove on across the
undulating treeless plain which extends to the west and
south-west. South ofus the land rose towards the Akhmangan
Mountains and the plateau west of Lake Sevan. North of
our road was the flat valley in the elevated plain through which
the Zanga runs westward, a formation indicating that the river
has never contained very much water, for otherwise it would
doubtless have excavated a deeper, narrower valley. Only
for a short distance from the outlet of the lake has it formed
a 35-metre-deep ravine in the basalt, and this soon opens out
into the flat valley.
On the other side of this valley a number of peaks rose
in the north and north-west ; these were the Darachichak
Mountains, including one, Zinshirli Dagh, which is 2,832
metres high. The surrounding plains and mountain slopes
were all treeless, but at least there was green grass growing
there. We saw several villages, and on the slopes far off in
the north-west on the opposite side of the valley we caught
sight of a number of houses nestling among trees. This
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