SALSES. 211 



In the north-western extremity towards the Cimmerian 

 Bosphorus are the mud volcanoes of the peninsula of Taman, 

 which form, one group with those of Aklanisowka and 

 Jenikale near Kertsch. One of the salses of Taman exhibited 

 an eruption of mud and gas on the 27th of February, 1793, in 

 which, after much subterranean noise, a column of fire half 

 enveloped in black smoke (dense aqueous vapour ?) rose to a 

 height of several hundred feet. It is a remarkable pheno- 

 menon, and instructive as regards the nature of the Volcan- 

 citos de Turbaco, that the gas of Taman. which was tested in 

 1811 by Frederick Parrot and Engelhardt, was not inflam- 

 mable -j whilst the gas collected by G-obel in the same place, 

 23 years later, burnt, from the mouth of a glass tube, with 

 a bluish flame like all emanations from the salses in the 

 south-eastern Caucasus, but also, when carefully analysed, 

 contained in 100 parts 92.8 of carburetted hydrogen and 5 

 parts of carbonic oxide gas. 63 



A phenomenon certainly nearly allied to these in its origin, 

 although different as regards the matter produced, is pre- 

 sented by the eruptions of boracic acid vapours in the Tuscan 

 Maremma, known under the names of lagoni, fiimmarole, 

 soffioni, and even volcani, near Possara, Castel Novo, and 

 Monte Cerboli. The vapours have an average temperature 

 of 205 to 212, and according to Pella, in certain points, as 

 much as 347. They rise in part directly from clefts in the 

 rocks, and partly from stagnant pools, in which they throw up 

 small cones of fluid clay. They are seen to diffuse them- 

 selves in the air in whitish eddies. The boracic acid, which 

 is brought up by the aqueous vapours from the bosom of 

 the earth, cannot be obtained when the vapours of the 

 sqffioni are condensed in very wide and long tubes, but 

 becomes diffused in the atmosphere in consequence of its 

 volatility. The acid is only procured in the beautiful esta- 

 blishments of Count Larderel, when the orifices of the 



hundred years before, in the tenth century (see Frahn, Ibn Fozlan, 

 p. 245, and on the etymology of the Median word naphtha, Asiatic 

 Journal, vol. xiii, p. 124). 



6:5 Compare Moritz von Engelhardt and F. Parrot, Reise in die Krym 

 und den Kaukasus, 1815, Th. i, s. 71, with Gobel, Reise in die Steppen 

 dex xiid lichen Russlands, 1838, Th. i, s. 249253. aud Th. ii, s. 138 

 144, 



p 2 



