COSMOS. 



We have long known 61 as the outermost members of the 

 Caucasus, in the north-west the mud-volcanoes of Taman, 



61 Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. ii, p. 58. Upon the reasons which 

 render it probable that the Caucasus, which for ft.hs of its length, be- 

 tween the Kasbegk and lilburuz, runs from E.S.E. to W.N.W. in the 

 mean parallel of 42 50', is the continuation of the volcanic fissure of 

 the Asferah (Aktagh) and Thian-schan, see the work cited above, pp. 54 

 61. Both the Asferah and Thian-schau oscillate between the parallels 

 of 40f and 43. I regard the great Aralo-Caspian depression, the sur- 

 face of which, according to the accurate measurements of Slruve, 

 exceeds the area of the whole of France by nearly 107,520 geographical 

 square miles (Op. cit. supra, pp. 309 312), as more ancient than the 

 elevations of the Altai and Thian-schan. The fissure of elevation of 

 the last-mentioned mountain chain has not been continued through the 

 great depression. It is only to the west of the Caspian Sea that we again 

 meet with it, with some alteration in its direction, as the chain of the 

 Caucasus, but associated with trachytic and volcanic phenomena. This 

 geognostic connection has also been recognised by Abich, and confirmed 

 by valuable observations. In a treatise on the connection of the Thian- 

 schan with the Caucasus by this great geognosist, which is in my pos- 

 session, he says expressly : " The frequency and decided predominance 

 of a system of parallel dislocations and lines of elevation (nearly from 

 east to west) distributed over the whole district (between the Black Sea 

 and the Caspian) brings the mean axial direction of the great latitu- 

 dinal central Asiatic mass-elevations, most distinctly westward from the 

 Kosyurt and Bolar system* to the Caucasian Isthmus. The mean 

 direction of the Caucasus, S.E. N.W., is E.S.E. W.N.W. in the cen- 

 tral parts of the mountain chain, and sometimes even exactly E. W., as 

 in the Thian-schan. The lines of elevation which unite Ararat with the 

 trachytic mountains Dzerlydagh and Kargabassar near Erzeroum, and in 

 the southern parallels of which Mount Argaeus, Sepandagh, and Sabalan 

 are arranged, constitute the most decided expression of a mean volcanic 

 axial direction, that is to say, of the Thian-schau being prolonged west- 

 ward through the Caucasus. Many other mountain-directions of 

 Central Asia, however, also revert to this remarkable space, and stand, 

 as elsewhere, in mutual relation to each other, so as to form vast moun- 

 tain nuclei and maxima of elevation." Pliny (vi, 17), says : " Persse 

 appellavere Caucasum montem Graucasim (var. Graucasum, Groucasim, 

 Grocasurn), hoc est nive candidum ;" in which Bohleu thought the 

 Sanscrit words Teds, to shine, and gravan, rock, were to be recognised 

 (see my Asie Centrale, t. i, p. 109). As Klausen says, in his investiga- 

 tions on the wanderings of lo (Rheinisckes Museum fur Philoloyie, 

 Jahrg iii, 1845, s. 298), if the name Graucasus was corrupted into Cau- 

 casus, then a name " in which each of its first syllables gave the Greeks 

 the idea of burning might certainly characterise a burning mountain, 

 with which the history of the Fire-burner (Fire-igniter, -rrvoKatvi-) would 

 become readily and almost spontaneously associated." It cannot be denied 

 that myths sometimes originate from names, but the production of so 

 great and important a fable, as the Typhonico-caucasic, can certainly not 



