URMIA, or Urumiah, a town of Persia, in the province of Azerbijan (Adarbaijan), lies 112 miles south-west of Tabriz and 10 from the west side of Lake Urmia, in the midst of an extremely fertile, highly cultivated, and densely peopled plain. Within the enclosures, consisting of a wall and deep ditch that can be flooded, there is a mixed Mohammedan and Christian population of from 25,000 to 30,000, while the surrounding district is studded with over 300 populous villages. Some of the streets are broader than is usual in Oriental towns and several are traversed by running water; but, beyond a busy bazaar and two or three old mosques, there is nothing of any interest. The chief industries are weaving, dyeing, and especially tillage, abundant crops of rice, melons, cotton, and excellent tobacco being raised in the neighbourhood. Urmia has for many years been the centre of an American mission, which has had considerable success, especially amongst the so-called “Chaldean” or Nestorian Christians. According to an old tradition, Urmia was the birthplace of Zoroaster....
The lake, which takes its name from the town, and which is also known as the Daria-cha, or “Little Sea,” is a completely landlocked basin, filling a shallow depression at the east foot of the Kurdish Highlands, but still about 5000 feet above sea-level. It is 90 miles long north and south, 30 miles broad, and 250 round, with a total area of 1600 square miles, but a mean depth of not more than 10 or 12 feet (45 in the deepest part sounded by Monteith), so that the whole volume is at least six times less than that of the much smaller lake of Geneva. There are as many as fifty-six islands, grouped chiefly towards the south, the largest 5 miles by 2, the smallest mere rocks, and none permanently inhabited, although they are tilled or used for grazing horses and sheep in winter. Although fed by numerous streams, the lake is intensely saline, more so even than the Dead Sea, and is consequently inhabited by no fish or other aquatic fauna, except a peculiar species of small crustacean, which affords abundant food to numerous swans and other wild-fowl. The salt, which forms extensive incrustations some inches thick round about the shelving north-eastern and southern shores, appears to be derived from Tertiary beds (Dr E. Tietze), and the geological formation appears to resemble that of Lake Niris in southern Persia (Blanford). The whole lacustrine basin, including the farthest sources of its influents, has an area of about 20,000 square miles, and the flooded part stood formerly at a much higher level than at present, as is shown by the watermarks on the encircling heights, and by the Shahi peninsula in the north-east, which at one time was certainly an island. In recent years the evaporation has on the whole balanced the inflow, although the lake is now said to be slightly rising, owing to the larger discharge from the Jaghatu and Tatau, which were formerly to a great extent absorbed in irrigating the southern Miandab plain. Near the Selmas river and at the village of Dihkergan in the south-east occur the famous “marble springs,” yielding the pink, yellow, and white “marble of Tabriz,” used for ornamenting many public buildings throughout western Asia.
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