ELBURS.

masses of earth were seen thrown up in the air, together with large stones.

Ten eruptions of this kind took place at intervals of a quarter of a hour. Similar phænomena continued during the night. There then rose out of the sea an island, which threw out from several apertures a muddy substance, that acquired by degrees some consistency.

During this time, a remarkable smell, which had nothing of a sulphureous nature, was perceived over a space of ten wersts. On the 20th of April, a nearer examination of the island was undertaken, and it was found almost inaccessible, being surrounded on all sides with hardened mud. When they had at last succeeded in reaching the interior of the island, its height above the level of the sea was found to be a toise and a half, and its surface was seen to be every where covered with a stony material of a whitish colour.*

In the chain of Elburs, which bounds the Caspian Sea on the south, there occurs a lofty mountain called Demavend, which has long been noted as a volcano; and as the Greeks attributed the agitations of Mount Etna to the Giant Typhoeus burned under it, so the Persians believe that Zohag, one of their sovereigns, remarkable for his tyrannies, after being conquered by Feridoun, the ancestor of Zoroaster, was imprisoned in this mountain.+

Feridoun appears to have been a personification of the good, as Zohag was of the evil principle, being confounded with Ahriman; and if we were disposed to follow Buffon in the fanciful picture he has drawn in his Epoques de la

* Leonhard. Taschenb. der Mineral. X. p. 476.

+ Zend-Avesta, translated by Anquetil du Perron, vol. i. part 3. p. 422, and vol. ii. p. 410.—Morier, in his Travels in Persia, vol. ii. p. 355. gives rather a different version to the tale. My readers will recollect other particulars respecting Zohag, in the new Novel of the Talisman.

ELBURS.

Nature of the early state of the world, which he supposes to have been at first so subject to the ravages of fire, as to be unfit for the maintenance of animal life, we might then imagine the confinement of Zolag within the entrails of the mountain, to have been typical of the gradual diminution of the volcanic action, which rendered the country more and more fitted for the habitation of man.

The analogy between the Persian Zohag and the Greek Typhoeus, holds good in other respects; as Zohag was figured with a serpent growing out of either shoulder, which he was obliged to feed with human blood, so Typhoeus is described with a hundred snakes, or a snake with a hundred heads, proceeding from the same part.

εκ δε οι ώμων

Ην εκατον κεφαλαι οφιος, δεινοιο δρακοντος
Γλωσσησι διαφεςησι λελειχμοτες

Hesiod. 824.

Conformably with this legend, Olivier found on Demavend lava and columnar basalt; Morier states, that it is reported sometimes to emit smoke, and that the circumstance of finding sulphur in small craters near the base of the mountain may lead to the conclusion, that the cone is itself volcanic. It appears that a considerable commerce in sulphur, as well as saltpetre, is carried on from it. Morier further mentions traces of the action of fire, extending south of this point, between Teheran and Ispahan, and near Tabriz, and Olivier makes the same observation respecting this neighbourhood, noticing particularly the country about Sava and Cashan.

Among our possessions in India, the accounts of volcanic appearances are vague and scanty.

Buffon Epoques de la Nature, p. 355.

We know indeed that the Island of Salsette, near Bombay, is basaltic, but it does not appear to be of recent formation; and Sir John Malcolm in his Memoir on Central India, has inserted a letter from Captain Dangerfield, giving an account of the geological structure of the province of Malwa, an elevated table land, which stretches across the centre of the peninsula between 21°. 30. and 24°. of north latitude, and which is chiefly composed of trap rocks. These however he considers to be secondary, and recognizes among them nothing of a volcanic nature.*

There is likewise in the Eastern Magazine for September, 1823, a notice of a journey up the Ganges, in which it is stated, that the rocks of Peerpoint and of Saerigully are black and porous, like lavas.

Amongst the Himalaya range there is said to have been discovered a volcanic mountain, which is at present emitting much smoke, but no flame. As no one however has yet examined the actual spot, it is impossible to determine at present what the real nature of the phænomenon may be, and the probabilities are certainly against its connexion with a genuine volcano, both from its situation in the centre of a vast continent, and from the apparent absence of any lavas or ejected masses in its vicinity.†

In central Tartary we have long had obscure notions as to the existence of volcanos, and Mons. Ferussac has taken the trouble of collecting, in a late number of the Bulletin des Sciences, the principal particulars that have been transmitted to us respecting them.

It would appear, that at the north of Khouei-thsu, and on the southern frontier occupied at the close of the 1st century of the Christian æra by the Hioungnou Turks, driven westward by the Chinese, there rises a burning mountain called Ho-chan. On one side of this mountain, add

Malcolm's Central India, vol. 2. Appendix.

+ See Brewster's Philos. Journal. April, 1826.

Vol. 3, for 1824.

U

the accounts, all the stones are in a burning and melted state, and flow to a distance of some tens of li (i. e. leagues). This melted mass afterwards becomes cold and hard. The inhabitants of the country use it for medicine. Sulphur is also met with.

A Chinese writer of the 7th century, in speaking of Khoueithsu, says: At 200 li (20 leagues) north of this town, there is a white mountain, which is called Aghie. Fire and smoke continually proceed from it; it is from thence that the sal ammoniac comes.

The antient town of Khouei-thsu is the town of Khoutché of the present time, situated in 41°. 37. north latitude, 80 35. east longitude, according to the observations of the missionaries sent towards the middle of the last century to prepare a map of it. This volcano, which forms a part of the snowy chain of the celestial mountains (Thian-Chan) must therefore be found nearly in 42.35 of N. latitude. It is probably the same which has at present the name of Khalar. According to the account of the Boukharies, who -bring the Sal Ammoniac to Siberia and Russia, the latter is found south of Korgos, a town situated on the Ili. So large a quantity of this salt is collected there, that the inhabitants of Khoutché employ it to pay their tribute to China.

The new description of central Asia, published at Pekin in 1777, contains the following notice:

The territory of Khoutché produces copper, saltpetre, sulphur, and sal ammoniac. The latter proceeds from a mountain called the Mountain of Sal Ammoniac, which is found on the north of the town. It has many caverns and crevices, which, in spring, summer, and autumn, are filled -with fire, so that during the night the mountain seems illuminated by thousands of lamps. No one then can come near it. It is only in winter, during the coldest season, and when the great quantity of snow has stifled the fire, that the people of the country approach; they strip themselves quite naked, in order to collect the sal ammoniac, which is found

in the caverns in the form of very hard stalactites; it is for this reason very difficult to detach it.

"Twelve days journey by the caravan, north of Korgos, is found another town, commonly called Tchougoultchak.. It is situated at the foot of Mount Tarbagatai, 46o. 5. N. lat. and 80o. 45. E. long. Four stations to the east of this town we arrive at the canton of Khoboksar, near Khobok, which falls into the Lake Darlai; there is there a small mountain full of fissures, which are excessively hot, but do not exhale any smoke. In these fissures sal ammoniac sublimes, and attaches itself so strongly to the walls, that it is necessary to break the rock in order to collect it.". Klaproth.

The Abbe Remusat, in a letter to Cordier,* states his having found in the Japanese edition of the Chinese encyclopedia other particulars respecting this volcano.

"The sal ammoniac in persian "Nouchader," in chinese "Naocha," &c. is drawn from two volcanic mountains of Central Tartary; one is the volcano of Tourfan, lat. 43. 30. long. 87. 11. which has given to the town near it, the name of Ho-Tcheou, town of fire; the other is the White Mountain, in the country of Bisch-Balikh; these two mountains throw out continually flames and smoke. There are cavities there in which they collect a greenish liquid; exposed to the air this liquid is changed into salt, which is the sal ammoniac; the people of the country use it in the prepa ration of leather. As to the Mountain of Tourfan, we ob serve a column of smoke rise from it perpetually; this smoke is replaced in the evening by a flame like that of a torch; birds and other animals lighted up by it appear of a red colour. The mountain is called the Mount of Fire. In order to search for the salt, they put on wooden shoes, for leather ones would soon be burnt. The people of the country likewise collect the mother waters, which they boil in cauldrons, and obtain from thence the sal ammoniac, under the form of loaves, like those of common salt.

* Annales des Mines, v. 1820-p. 135 & 197.