222 COSMOS. 



the elevation of a whole district, and lofty emissions of flame of 

 short duration. When the mud volcano of Jokmali began to 

 form, on the 27th of November, 1827, in the peninsula of 

 Abscheron, on the Caspian sea, east of Baku, the flames flashed 

 up to an extraordinary height for three hours, whilst during the 

 next twenty hours they scarcely rose three feet above the crater, 

 from which mud was ejected. Near the village of Baklichli, 

 west of Baku, the flames rose so high that they could be seen 

 at a distance of twenty-four miles. Enormous masses of rock 

 were torn up and scattered around. Similar masses may be 

 seen round the now inactive mud volcano of Monte Zibio, 

 near Sassuolo, in Northern Italy. The secondary condition of 

 repose has been maintained for upwards of fifteen centuries in 

 the mud volcanoes of Girgenti, the Macalubi, in Sicily, which 

 have been described by the ancients. These salses consist of 

 many contiguous conical hills, from eight to ten, or even thirty 

 feet in height, subject to variations of elevation as well as of 

 form. Streams of argillaceous mud, attended by a periodic 

 development of gas, flow from the small basins at the summits, 

 which are filled with water ; the mud, although usually cold, 

 is sometimes at a high temperature, as at Damak, in the 

 province of Samarang, in the island of Java. The gases that 

 are developed with loud noise differ in their nature, consisting, 

 for instance, of hydrogen mixed with naphtha, or of carbonic 

 acid, or, as Parrot and myself have shown (in the peninsula 

 of Tainan, and in the Volcancitos de Turbaco, in South 

 America), of almost pure nitrogen.* 



Mud volcanoes, after the first violent explosion of lire, 

 which is not perhaps in an equal degree common to all, 

 present to the spectator an image of the uninterrupted but 

 weak activity of the interior of our planet. The communica- 

 tion with the deep strata in which a high temperature prevails 

 is soon closed, and the coldness of the mud-emissions of the 

 raises seems to indicate that the seat of the phenomenon 



* Humboldt, Rel. hist. t. iii. p. 562-567; Asie Centrale, t. i. p. 43, 

 t. ii. pp. 505-515 ; Vues des Cordilleres, pi. xli. Regarding the Macalubi 

 (the Arabic Makldiib, the overthrown or inverted, from the word Khalaba), 

 and on " the Earth ejecting fluid earth," see Solinus, cap. 5 : " idem ager 

 Agrigentinus eructat limosas scaturigenes, et ut venae fontiurn sufficiunt 

 rivis subministrandis, ita in hac Sicilise parte solo mmquam deficiente, 

 eeterna rejectatione terram terra e vomit." 



