TRUE VOLCANOES. 437 



communication between the Sea of Aral, the Aksakal, 

 the Sary-Kupa and the Tschagli. A great furrow is 

 observed, running from south-west to north-east, which 

 may be traced by the way of Omsk, between Irtisch and 

 Obi, through the steppe of Barabinsk, which abounds in 

 lakes, towards the moory plains of the Samoiedes, towards 

 Beresow and the shore of the Arctic Ocean. With this 

 furrow is probably connected the ancient and wide-spread 

 tradition of a Sitter Lake (called also the Dried Lake, 

 Hanhai) which extended eastward and southward from 

 Hanii, and in which ' a portion of the Gobi, whose salt and 

 reedy centre was found by Dr. von Bunge's careful baro- 

 metrical measurement to be only 2558 feet above the level 

 of the sea, rose in the form of an island. 46 It is a geological 

 fact, which has not hitherto received its due share of atten- 

 tion, that seals, exactly similar to those which inhabit the 

 Caspian Sea and the Baikal in shoals, are found upwards of 

 400 miles to the east of the Baikal in the small fresh-water 

 lake of Oron, only a few miles in circumference. The lake 

 is connected with the Witim, a tributary of the Lena, in 

 which there are no seals. 47 The present isolation of these 

 animals and their distance from the mouth of the Volga 

 (fully 3600 geographical miles) form a remarkable geological 

 phenomenon, indicative of an ancient and extensive con- 

 nection of waters. Can it be that the numerous depressions 

 to which, throughout a large tract of country, this central 

 part of Asia has been exposed, have called forth exception- 

 ally, on the convexity of the continental swelling, conditions 

 similar to those pi^oduced on the littoral borders of the fis- 

 sures of elevation ? 



From reliable accounts rendered to the Emperor Kanghi, 

 we are acquainted with the existence of an extinct volcano 

 far to the east, iu the north-western Mantschurei, in the 

 neighbourhood of Mergen (probably in lat. 48^ and long. 

 122 20' east). The eruption of scoriae and lava from the 

 mountain of Bo-shan or Ujun-Holdongi (the Nine Hills) 



46 Klaproth, Asia Polyglotta, p. 232, and Memoires relatifs & TAsie 

 (from the Chinese Encyclopedia, published by command of the Em- 

 peror Kang-hi, in 1711), t. ii. p. 342 ; Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. ii, 

 pp. 125 and 135143. 



4 ? Pallas, Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica, 1811, p. 115. 



