Volcanoes of Centred Asia. 151 



published at Peking in 1777, we find the following statement : 

 — ^' The province of Ku-cha produces copper, saltpetre, sul- 

 phur, and sal-ammoniac. The latter article comes from an am- 

 moniac mountain to the north of the city of Koutche, which is 

 full of chasms and caverns. These apertures in spring, sum- 

 mer, and autumn, are filled to such a degree, that, during the 

 night, the mountain appears illuminated by thousands of lamps. 

 No one is then able to approach it. In winter alone, when the 

 vast quantity of snow has extinguished the fire, the natives are 

 able to labour in collecting the sal-ammoniac, for which pui-pose 

 they strip themselves quite naked. The salt is found in ca- 

 verns, in the form of stalactites, which renders it difficult to be 

 detached." The name of Tartarian salt, formerly given in 

 commerce to this salt, ought to have long ago directed attention 

 to the volcanic phenomena of Central Asia. 



M. Cordier, in his letter to M. Abel Remusat, " on the ex- 

 istence of two burning volcanoes in Central Asia," calls Pechan 

 a soJfatara like that of Puzzuoli. In the state in which it is 

 described in the work cited farther back, the Pechan might 

 well deserve only the name of an extinct volcano, although the 

 igneous phenomena are wanting in the solfataras I have seen : 

 such as those of Puzzuoli, the crater of the Peak of Teneriffe, 

 the Rucu-pichincha, and the volcano of JoruUo ; but passages in 

 more ancient Chinese historians, who relate the march of the ar- 

 my of the Heung-nus, in the first century of our era, speak of 

 masses of rocks in fusion flowing to the distance of some miles : 

 so that it is impossible, in these expressions, not to understand 

 eruptions of lava. The ammoniac mountain between Koutche 

 and Korgos has also been a volcano, in activity, in the strictest 

 sense of the word : a volcano which emitted torrents of lava in 

 the centre of Asia, 400 geographical leagues from the Caspian 

 Sea to the west, 433 from the Frozen Sea to the north, 504 

 from the Great Ocean to the east, and 440 from the Indian Ocean 

 to the south. This is not the place to discuss the question rela- 

 tive to the influence of the proximity of the sea on the action of 

 volcanoes ; I merely solicit attention to the geographical posi- 

 tion of the volcanoes of Inner Asia, and their reciprocal rela- 

 tions. The Pechan is distant from 300 to 400 leagues from 

 all the seas. When I returned from Mexico, some celebrated 



