28 KATURAL HISTORY OF 



destroying houses and whole cities, with many human 

 lives ; and they are stiU more abundant and violent on 

 the east side, where the mountains dip into the nor- 

 thern Pacific, to rise again and produce desolation in 

 Japan. 



A diluvian convulsion evidently occurred during the 

 present zoology. It passed over Western Asia, from 

 south to north, affecting the Arctic coast, and snapping 

 a portion of the cardinating mountain ridge, it caused 

 the surface of the earth to sink below the level of any 

 known dry land, excepting the basin of the Dead Sea : 

 thus the Caspian formed an abyss ; the Aral lake, and, 

 farther west, perhaps the Euxine Sea shared the same 

 convulsion ; for all have the greatest depth of water 

 on the south fide, close upon the most elevated shores, 

 where volcanic detonations are still constantly felt. 

 Notwithstanding the quiescent state of the high sandy 

 plateau of Persia, the frequency of naptha springs, 

 some boiling, others in actual flame, with constant 

 smaller eruptions along the northern coast, and in 

 other parts of the kingdom, attest the presence of 

 numerous ramifications of active fires, once sufficiently 

 powerful to form lofty mountain peaks, whose summits, 

 such as Alburs and Demavend, show by their craters, 

 now extinct or inactive, the vast extent and force of 

 the disturbing agency perhaps still better exempli- 

 fied in the high cones of Ararat, the loftiest of which 

 recently fell in, and proved this mountain to be also of 

 volcanic origin, crumbling in decay. 



