210 COSMOS. 



plan Sea near Balachani (to the north of Baku) and one of 

 the mouths of the Kur (Araxes), near the hot springs of 

 Sallian. The apex of such a triangle is situated near the 

 Schagdagh in the elevated valley of Kinalughi. There, at 

 the boundary of a, dolomitic and slate formation, at an ele- 

 vation of 8350 feet above the Caspian Sea, close to the 

 village of Kinalughi itself, break forth the perpetual fires of 

 the Schagdagh, which have never been extinguished by me- 

 teorological occurrences. The central axis of this triangle 

 corresponds with the direction which the earthquakes, so 

 often experienced in Schamacha upon the banks of the 

 Pyrsagat, appear constantly to follow. When the north- 

 western direction just indicated is traced further, it strikes 

 upon the hot sulphurous springs of Akti, and then becomes 

 the line of strike of the principal crest of the Caucasus where 

 It rises up into the Kasbegk and bounds Daghestan. The 

 salses of the lower region, which are often regularly arranged 

 in series, gradually become more numerous towards the shore 

 of the Caspian, between Sallian, the mouth of the Pyrsagat 

 (near the island of Swinoi), and the peninsula of Apscheron. 

 They present traces of repeated mud eruptions in earlier 

 times, and often bear at their summits small cones, from 

 which combustible and often spontaneously ignited gas is 

 poured forth, and which are exactly similar in form to the 

 hornitos of Jortillo in Mexico. Considerable eruptions of 

 flame were particularly frequent between 1844 and 1849, at 

 the Oudplidagh, Nahalath, and Turandagh. Close to the 

 mouth of the Pyrsagat on the mud volcano Toprachali, 

 " black marly fragments, which at the first glance might be 

 confounded with dense basalt, and extremely fine-grained 

 doleritic rocks" are found (a proof of the exceptional, greatly 

 increased intensity of the subterranean heat). At other 

 points on the peninsula of Apscheron, Lenz found slag-like 

 fragments as products of eruption ; and during the great 

 eruption of flame of Backlichli (7th February, 1839), small 

 hollow balls, like the so-called ashes of the true volcanoes, 

 were carried by the wind to a long distance. 62 



62 Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. ii, pp. 511 and 513. I Lave already 

 (t. ii, p. 201 ) called attention to the fact that Edrisi does not mention 

 the fire of Baku, although it is described diffusely as a Nefala-land, that 

 is to say, rich in burning naphtha swings, by Mass 1 *^/ *)othbeddin, two 



