356 COSMOS. 



IV. ASIA. 



a. The Western and Central part. 



The volcano of Demavend, 66 in a state of ignition, but, 

 according to the accounts of Olivier, Morier and Taylor 

 Thomson (1837), smoking only moderately, and not uninter- 

 ruptedly. 



The volcano of Medina (eruption of lava in 1276). 



The volcano of Djebel el Tir (Tair or Tehr), an insular 

 mountain 895 feet high, between Loheia and Massaua in the 

 Red Sea. 



The volcano of Peshan, northward of Kutsche in the great 

 mountain-chain of the Thian-schan or Celestial Mountains in 

 Central Asia ; eruptions of lava within the true historical 

 period, from the year 89 up to the beginning of the seventh 

 centuiy of our era. 



The volcano of Ho-cheu, called also sometimes in the very 

 circumstantial Chinese geographies the volcano of Turfan ; 

 120 geographical miles from the great Solfatara of Urumtsi, 

 near the eastern extremity of the Thian-schan, in the direc- 

 tion of the beautiful fruit country of Hami. 



The volcano of Demavend, which rises to a height of up- 



56 The height of Demavend above the sea was given by Ainsworth 

 at 14,695, but after correcting a barometrical result, probably attri- 

 butable to an error of the pen (Asie Centrale, t. iii, p. 327), it amounts, 

 according to Ottman's tables to fully 18,633 feet. A somewhat greater 

 elevation, 20,085 feet, is given by the angles of altitude worked by my 

 friend, Captain Lemm, of the Russian navy, in the year 1839, and 

 which are certainly very correct, but the distance is not trigonome- 

 trically laid down, and rests on the presumption that the volcano 

 of Demavend is 66 versts distant from Teheran (one equatorial 

 degree being equal to 104^y versts). Hence it would appear that the 

 Persian volcano of Demavend, covered with perpetual snow, situated so 

 near the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, but distant 600 geogra- 

 phical miles from the Colchian coast of the Black Sea, is higher than 

 the great Ararat by about 2989 feet and the Caucasian Elburuz by 

 probably 1600 feet. On the Demavend, see Hitter, Erdkunde von 

 Asien, Bd. vi, Abth. i, s. 551 571, and on the connection of the name 

 Albordj, taken from the mythic and therefore vague geography of the 

 Zend-nation, with the modern name Elburz (Koh Alburz of Kazwini) 

 and Elburuz, see ibid. s. 4349, 424, 552, and 555. 



