418 iXOTES ON THE CiEOLOGY 



mountain. And I have very seldom ol:)served the di^wial punch' 

 howl hollows, which so abundantly occur in America. Mr. Johnston, 

 however, informs me, that he observed veiy striking examples of 

 such hollows in ancient Cilicia, on the river Halys, near the present 

 town of Sivas. Li the same region, too, he observed a section of 

 alluvium and drift, (wliich was laid open by a rapid stream, issuing 

 apparently from the ground at the head of the section,) and which 

 was four hundred feet high ; the whole presenting verj^ striking geo- 

 logical features." 



It is difficult not to recognize in the preceding accounts, what 

 are called ancient moraines, by Agassiz, Buckland, and others. 

 Those at Trebizond have probably been brought into a conical 

 shape, and are insulated by alluvial agency, subsequent to their 

 original production. Some insulated cones of this descrip- 

 tion occur on the plains of Oroomiah. There are not less 

 than twelve or thirteen of them, and some of them, according to 

 Mr. Perkins, cover an acre and a half of gi'ound, and are from 

 seventy-five to one hundred feet high. In that region they are 

 universally regarded as artificial, and the work of the ancient fire- 

 worshippers. For on digging into them, walls of stone are found 

 laid up to their centres, and much of the soil seems to be little 

 else than ashes. 



It may appear presumptuous in me to doubt the artificial origin 

 of these mounds. But in the first place, similar mounds occur 

 in various parts of the northern hemisphere, and are almost every 

 where regarded as artificial ; whereas geologists are discovering 

 from time to time, that many of them are the result of aqueous 

 agency, either during the drift period, or the alluvial. In the 

 second place, if these mounds existed before man, it is not strange 

 that man has chosen them as a place on which to erect forts, 

 perform religious rites, and to deposit the dead. It would be 

 reasonable to expect, that the fire-worshippers would choose them 

 as the spot best fitted for keeping up the perpetual fia-e. In the 

 third place, Mr. Perkins informs me, that some of them at least, 

 where he saw them dug into, exhibited a stratified arrangement 

 of their materials. This fact appears to me quite decisive in favor 

 of their aqueous origin ; for what human sldll can arrange fine 



