Miscellanies. 3 49 



ral the masses shoot up from the valley vertically to the height of 

 300 to 40O feet; at the t^iimmit there is a short receding ledge of 

 rocks sloping inwards, and thence springs a second wall of columns 

 running up to the same height ; then comes another slope and another 

 wall and so on till these successions of terraces and basaltic super- 

 structures terminate at the top of the mountain under a thick stratum 

 of shapeless rock. Consequently the entire height of these groups 

 or successions of columnar terraces must be from 1,000 to 2,000 or 

 more feet high. 



3. Floods. — Immense floods ^ arising from the tliawing of the snows, 

 throw down tremendous avalanches of rucks. There was a deluge 

 in the Caucasus in June, 1776, when the water rose 258 feet; the 

 depth of the snow rolled down owing to the fall of the peak of the 

 Kasibeck was 186 feet ; it dammed the Terek for twelve days, when 

 it burst away in an overwhelming torrent, resounding louder than 

 thunder, and burying valleys, villages, and people under snow, ice, 

 and rocky ruins. 



J 



4. Hot Baths. — Near Tiflis (Geo.) the hot water is very ahundant, 

 feeding the baths; the temperature at their source is 42. R^ 94^ F: 

 the smell is sulphureous; there is a great number of haths frequented 

 by all classes, and everything about them is wet and dirty; the 

 baths are excavated in the solid rock over which the water formerly 

 flowed. In the female apartments there was no disguise; the females 

 did not shrink from observation- At Elija, near one of the sources 

 of the Euphrates, there is a hot spring where three or four buffaloes 

 were enjoying the bath, and about fifteen or twenty boys were play- 

 ing beneath them. 



5. Boiling Spring near the Akhoor "River. — The spring issues 

 from the ground with volumes of steam, wreathing in white clouds 

 through the air. 



6. Ararat — Extinct Volcano near Mount Ararat. — There is 

 no verdure, but universal sterility; all parts are covered with volca- 

 nic stones or masses like cinders, black, heavy and honey-combed, 

 as if thrown from an iron-forge. A hill near Ararat is evidently an 

 extinct volcano, athough no author mentions any volcano near to this 



mountain. 



From the plain below Ararat appeared "as if the hugest moun- 

 tains in the world had been piled upon each other to form this one 

 sublime immensity of earth, and rock, and snow^. The icy peaks of 

 its double heads rose majestically into the clear and cloudless heav- 

 ens : the sua blazed bright upon them ;. and the reflection sent forth 



