358 Mr. Murchison on the Freezing Cave of llletzkaya Zatchita. 



The entire range of this bed of salt is not known, but the mass has 

 been ascertained to extend two versts in one direction, and Mr. 

 Murchison is of opinion that it constitutes the subsoil of a very large 

 area ; its entire thickness also does not appear to have been deter- 

 mined, but it is stated to exceed 100 feet. The upper surface of 

 the deposit is very irregular, penetrating, in some places, as already 

 mentioned, the overlying sands and marls. 



In consequence of the salt occurring at so small a depth every 

 pool supplied with springs from below is affected by it* ; and one 

 of them used by the inhabitants as a bath is so highly charged with 

 saline contents that there is a difficulty in keeping the body sub- 

 merged, and the skin on leaving the pool is encrusted with salt. 

 This brine swarms with animalcules. 



Mr. Murchison then describes the freezing cavern and the 

 phasnomena exhibited by it. The cave is situated at the southern 

 base of a hillock of gypsum at the eastern end of the village con- 

 nected with the imperial establishment ; and it is one of a series of 

 apparently, for the greater part, natural hollows, used by the pea- 

 santry for cellars or stores. The cave in question is, however, the 

 only one which possesses the singular property of being partially 

 filled with ice in summer and of being destitute of it in winter. 

 " Standing on the heated ground and under a broiling sun, I shall 

 never forget," says the author, " my astonishment when the woman 

 to whom the cavern belonged unlocked a frail door and a volume 

 of air so piercingly keen struck the legs and feet that we were glad 

 to rush into a cold bath in front of us to equalize the effect." Three 

 or four feet within the door and on a level with the village street, 

 beer and quash were half frozen. A little further the narrow chasm 

 opened into a vault fifteen feet high, ten paces long, and from seven 

 to eight wide, which seemed to send off irregular fissures into the body 

 of the hillock. The whole of the roof and sides were hung with solid 

 undripping icicles, and the floor was covered with hard snow, ice, 

 or frozen earth. During the winter all these phenomena disappear, 

 and when the external air is very cold and all the country is frozen 

 up, the temperature of the cave is such that the Russians state thev 

 could sleep in it without their sheep-skins. 



In order to lay before the Society an explanation of these curious 

 opposite conditions of the cave, the author communicated with Sir 

 JohnHerschel and received the documents which follow this abstract. 

 With respect to the observations in Sir J. Herschel's letter, Mr. Mur- 

 chison says, he does not conceive that the ice caverns at Teneriffe, in 

 Auvergne and elsewhere are analogous cases with that at llletzkaya 

 Zatchita, the frozen materials in the last not arising from the pre- 

 servation of the snow or ice of the preceding winter, but from the 



* The abundance of these brine-springs in various parts of Russia must 

 lead, the author says, to the abandonment of Pallas's hypothesis, that the 

 saline pools and lakes are the residue of former Caspians ; though he admits 

 that some of the vast low steppes of the South formed the bottom of a for- 

 mer condition of the existing Caspian. 



