TRUE VOLCANOES. 405 



groups (the group of the Puy de Dome, near Clermont, with 

 the Mont Dore, the group of the Cantal, and the group of 

 the Puy and Mezenc), are severally 148, 116, and 84 miles 

 distant from the sea. The extinct volcanoes of Olot, south 

 of the Pyrenees, west of Gerona, with their distinct and 

 sometimes divided lava streams, are distant only 28 miles 

 from the Catalonian shores of the Mediterranean ; while, on 

 the other hand, the undoubted, and to all appearances very 

 lately extinct, volcanoes in the long chain of the Rocky 

 Mountains, in the northwest of America, are situated at a 

 distance of from 600 to 680 miles from the shore of the 

 Pacific. 



A very abnormal phenomenon in the geographical distri- 

 bution of volcanoes is the existence in historical times of act- 

 ive, and partially, perhaps, even of burning volcanoes in the 

 mountain chain of the Thian-shan (the Celestial Mountains), 

 between the two parallel chains of the Altai and the Kuen- 

 lu'n. The existence of these volcanoes was first made known 

 by Abel-Remusat and Klaproth, and I have been enabled, by 

 the aid of the able and laborious investigations of Stanislas 

 Julien, to treat of them fully in my work on Central Asia.* 



is taken as the most northerly point (Rozet, in .the Mem. de la Societe 

 Gcol. de France, t. i., 1844, p. 119). Farther south than the group of 

 the Cantal, and therefore nearest the sea-shore, lies the small volcanic 

 district of La Guiolle, near the Monts d'Aubrac, northwest of Chirac, 

 and distant scarcely 72 geogi-aphical miles from the sea. Compare 

 the Carte Gcologique de la France, 1841. 



* Humboldt, Asie Centrale, t. ii., p. 7-61, 216, and 335-364; Cos- 

 mos, vol. i., p. 245. The mountain lake of Issikul, on the northern 

 slope of the Thian-shan, which was lately visited for the first time by 

 Russian travelers, I found marked on the famous Catalonian map of 

 1374, a which is preserved as a treasure among the manuscripts of the 

 Paris library. Strahlenberg, in his work entitled Der nordliche vnd 

 ostlidie Theil von Europa und Asien (Stockholm, 1730, s. 327), has the 

 merit of having first represented the Thian-shan as a peculiar and in- 

 dependent chain, without, however, being aware of its volcanic action. 

 He gives it the very indefinite name of Mousart, which as the Bolor 

 was designated by the general title of Mustag, which particularizes 

 nothing, and merely indicates snow has for a whole century occa- 

 sioned an erroneous representation, and an absurd and confused no- 

 menclature of the mountain ranges to the north of the Himalaya, con- 

 founding meridian and parallel chains with each other. Mousart is a 

 corruption of the Tartaric word Muztay, synonymous with our expres- 

 sion snowy chain, the Sierra Nevada of the Spaniards, the Himalaya in 

 the Institutes of Menu signifying the habitation (alaya) of snow (hima), 



[ a This curious Spanish map was the result of the great commercial 

 relations which existed at that time between Majorca and Italy, Egypt 

 and India. See a more full notice of it in Asie Centrale, loc. cit. TR.] 



