208 REACTION OF THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH 



Not far from the village of Kinalughi, at an elevation of 

 nearly 8350 feet above the Caspian and at the junction of 

 a dolomite and a slate formation, there break forth " the 

 perpetual fires of Schagdagh," which are never extin- 

 guished by the weather. The axis of this triangle cor- 

 responds to the direction which appears to be constantly 

 followed by the earthquakes, which are so often experi- 

 enced in Schamacha, on the banks of the Pyrsagat. If 

 this north-western direction is prolonged, it encounters 

 the hot sulphurous springs of Akti, and then becomes 

 the line of the principal crest of the Caucasus, where it 

 rises to the Kasbegh and bounds the western part of 

 Daghestan. The salses of the low country, often regu- 

 larly arranged in line, become gradually more frequent 

 towards the shore of the Caspian between Sallian, 

 the mouth of the Pyrsagat (near the island of Swinoi), 

 and the peninsula of Apscheron. They show traces 

 of former repeated eruptions of mud, and bear on their 

 summits small cones, quite similar in shape to the hor- 

 nitos of Jorullo in Mexico, from which there exhales an 

 inflammable gas, which indeed often ignites spontane- 

 ously. Considerable outbreaks of flames were particu- 

 larly frequent between 1844 and 1849 on the Oudplidagh, 

 Nahalath, and Turandagh. Close by the mouth of the 

 Pyrsagat, at the mud-volcano of Toprachali, there are 

 found (as proofs of a greatly increased intensity of sub- 

 terranean heat) " black pieces of marl, which at first 

 sight might be mistaken for dense basalt and exceed- 

 ingly fine-grained dolerite." At other parts of the 

 peninsula of Apscheron, Lenz found fragments which 

 looked like erupted scoriae, and at the time of the 

 great burst of flames at Baklichli on the 7th of Fe- 

 bruary 1839, small hollow balls, like what are called 



