ON ITS EXTERIOR. SPRINGS OF YAPOUR AND' GAS. 207 



mediate links in inorganic and organic nature, salses and 

 mud-volcanoes are well-deserving of a serious attention, 

 which the older geologists, for want of special knowledge 

 of the facts, were not so well able to bestow on them. 



Salses and naphtha-springs are found, in some cases, 

 in small detached groups; as the Macalubi in Sicily, 

 near Girgenti (referred to so early as by Solinus), those 

 near Pietra Mala, Barigazzo and at the Monte Zibio, 

 not far from Sassuolo in the north of Italy, and at Tur- 

 baco in South America ; and in other cases (which 

 are the more important and instructive) arranged as 

 it were in long narrow lines. The mud-volcanoes of 

 Taman on the north-west of the chain of the Caucasus, 

 and the naphtha-springs and burning naphtha of Baku 

 and of the Caspian peninsula of Apscheron on the 

 south-east, have long been known ( 285 ) as the extreme 

 links belonging to that great mountain-chain ; but 

 the magnitude and connection of these phsenomena 

 were first shown by Abich, who is profoundly ac- 

 quainted with that portion of western Asia. Accord- 

 ing to his views, the Caucasian mud-volcanoes and 

 founts of burning naphtha are recognisably connected 

 with certain lines, which are in unmistakable relation 

 to the "axes of elevation" and "directions of dis- 

 location" of the strata. The larger portion of the 

 south-eastern part of the Caucasus is occupied by gene- 

 tically connected mud-volcanoes, naphtha exhalations, 

 and saline springs in a triangle with two equal sides, 

 having for its base the shore of the Caspian from Bala- 

 chani (north of Baku) to one of the mouths of the 

 Kur (Araxes) near the hot springs of Sallian, and for 

 its apex Schagdagh in the high valley of Kinalughi. 



