Giants, one of whom, Alcyoneus, is said to have been thrust out of it by Hercules, and the Phlegrean fields, which in later times were placed either in the vicinity of Mount Etna or of Naples, appear antiently to have been fixed in this peninsula, for Heyne observes,* that by Phlegra and Pallene is meant the same country, the latter peninsula being remarkable for earthquakes and subterranean fires. The same commentator further observes, I know not on what authority, that the very aspect of this spot even at the present time proves the agency of earthquakes and subterranean fires; but I do not find this statement confirmed by modern travellers, on the contrary Dr. Holland states that the peninsula is in part at least of primitive formation.+ Dodwell conjectures that the mountains near the Pass of Thermopylæ are volcanic, but he produces no better evidence than the story of Hercules and Deianira's tunic, which seems somewhat far-fetched.+ Omitting however these more questionable proofs of vol canic agency, let us proceed to the neighbourhood of Constantinople, where at least the most unequivocal indications of subterranean fire are manifested in the nature of the rocks themselves. Dr. Clarke in his Travels has noticed, that the Cyanean * See Heynè Annot. in Apollod. p. 29, and his Dissert. de Theog. Hes. in Comm. Gott. v. 2. p. 151. + It may be as well to notice a passage of Lucretius relating to another part of the same country, by way of directing the attention of future travellers. Scaptesula, the spot alluded to, was near Abdera in Thrace. Nonne vides, etiam terrâ quoque sulphur in ipsâ LUCRET. Lib. 6. v. 5h0. Scaptesula was the place mentioned as belonging to Thucydides, in Cimon's Life, but I am inclined to think, that Lucretius alludes to sulphureous vapours arising rather from the metallic ores that occur there (of which Plutarch speaks) than from any volcanic appearances. Classical Tour, vol. 2. p. 126. rocks at the entrance of the Bosphorus consist of substances more or less modified by fire, containing fragments of lava, trap, basalt, and marble, together with veins of agate, chalcedony, and quartz. He also speaks of the ranges of basaltic pillars on the Asiatic side of the strait. The most detailed account however of this formation is given by General Andreossi in his Remarks on the Lithology of the Bosphorus.. . He states that the mountains of Bithynia, on the side of the Bosphorus, are composed of calcareous beds of a blue colour, and without shells. From Bucuk-leman, however, on the European, and Kelscheli-leman on the Asiatic side, we observe a succession of irregular and black-looking rocks, made up of a congeries of angular fragments of a sombre grey colour, traversed by veins of chalcedony, and containing masses of compact felspar passing into basalt. Cordier says that they consist either of a basaltic wacke, having a porphyritic character of a porphyritic lava with a clinkstone basis of an imperfect obsidian porphyry-or of a clay porphyry with green earth. It is of a similar trachytic material (tephrine of Cordier) that the Cyanean rocks are composed, but the substratum on which they rest, is a series of horizontal beds consisting of wacke. At Youm Bournou, on the Asiatic side, is a conglomerate traversed by prisms of basalt, the extremities of which cap the mountain. The Crommyon, a rock about 80 feet high, is composed of clinkstone. In the Gulph of Kabakos, the same observer found obsidian porphyry, clinkstone porphyry, passing into basalt, and of the common kind, and clay porphyry penetrated by a vein of saccharoid limestone. It appears that the borders of the Black Sea consist of a brecchia formed of marine shells, together with stalagmitical limestone and bituminous wood in beds. Connected probably with this formation, are the hot baths of Pythia, in Bithynia, beyond Mount Olympus, and pretty far towards the eastern side, which are mentioned by several, antient writers. A friend has pointed out to me a curious passage referring to them in the 4th volume of Jacob's reprint of Brunck's Authology, in which is inserted a singular, though inelegant and almost barbarous poem, of Paulus Silentiarius, (Σιλεντιάριος) chief silence-keeper* to the Emperor Justinian. In speculating on the cause of the heat, the author chooses a theory very similar to that which prevails at present with respect to many hot springs not supposed to be connected with volcanic phænomena. "It is conceived," he says,+ "by some, that there are narrow, An officer of high dignity in the Imperial palace of Constantinople. ISLE OF TAMAN. fissures below the earth; that opposing currents of water meeting from various quarters are compressed, and by that compression acquire no ordinary heat. Others on the contrary say that in the recesses of the earth there are somewhere sulphureous ores; that the neighbouring stream therefore, meeting with a violent heat, from its inability to remain below, rushes upwards in a mass. Which opinion will my readers adopt? The former? I do not myself embrace this: I agree with the latter one. For there is a mephitic offensive stench clearly proving it. 'Twas thus the hot bubbling fluid issued for the benefit of mankind, an inanimate Hippocrates, a Galen untaught by art." We hear also of volcanic phænomena in the little Island of Taman, which connects the chain of mountains traversing the Peninsula of Crimea with the Asiatic Continent. From the best accounts however that have been transmitted to us respecting this phænomenon, such as those of Pallas and Heber, it seems not very probable that the cause is connected with real volcanic action, Pallas represents the eruption as beginning with a thick smoke, followed by a column of flame fifty feet in height, which continued for eight hours and a half incessantly, during which time streams of mud flowed in all directions, but no lava or altered masses of stone were ejected. The accounts given by Mr. Heber in his Mt. Journal attached to Dr. Clarke's Travels, is such as fully confirms this view, and renders it highly probable that the phænomenon is altogether analogous to that of Macaluba in Sicily. The same traveller informs us, that a sulphureous spring, like Harrowgate water, exists near the spot. It is true that Dr. Clarke found on the coast loose fragments of lava, but these he supposes to have been brought from Italy as ballast, and to be quite unconnected with the processes before alluded to.* Returning from this extreme point of Europe to the Mediterranean, we have yet to mention the volcanic rocks that occur on the western surface of Sardinia, of which an account has recently appeared in the Annales du Muséet for 1824. It may be collected from this statement, that the volcanos occur in almost every case in groupes of greater or less extent; and that they in general repose on rocks belonging to the most recent order of formations. Part of these products are of a date posterior to the excavation of the vallies, but others are distinctly recognized as anterior to that event. Thus in the south of the island, between the village of Nurri and the plain called Campidano, the calcareous rocks of the country are capped by a platform of well-characterized lava, which follows the general inclination of the country from east to west. The name given to these platforms is Giarra, and there are several of them, such as the Giarra de Serri, de Gestori, &c. The inclination of the beds, the direction of the cells, and the abundance of the lava which is found alike on the summits of all the calcareous and marly hills of this neighbourhood, lead to the belief that their origin is in all cases the same, or that they belong, to speak more correctly, to one and the same current that proceeded from a crater near Nurri, at an epoque antecedent to the period at which the vallies were excavated. ་ The craters are in great measure effaced, and it is only with hesitation that our author admits that there exist traces of any. In his search he was directed rather by the shape and direction of the cells found in the lavas, than by the actual form of the masses themselves. * For a further description of this phænomenon, see Engelhardt and Parrot Reise in dem Krym and dem Kaukasus, page 69. *The author's name is Mons. de la Marmora. |