VOL. XLV.] PHILOSOPHICAL THANSACTIONS. |iP9 



O71 the Everlasting Fire in Persia. By Dr. James Mounsey, Physician of the 

 Czarina's ^-/rmy. N'' 487, p. 296. 



As the natural history of Persia is but httle known, and the authors of the 

 Universal History have given no true account of the everlasting sacred fire which 

 the Gauers worship, Dr. M. gives the following description of it, which he says 

 may be depended on, as there was a Russian army for some years in the kingdom 

 of Dagestan, where the fire is ; and he took down what he relates from the 

 mouths and journals of many officers that were there, and more particularly from 

 what was communicated to him by archiater Fischer, who received an account 

 of it from Dr. Lerch, physician of that army. 



This perpetual fire rises out of the ground in the peninsula of Abscheron, 

 about 20 miles from Baku, and 3 miles from the Caspian shore. The ground 

 is very rocky, but has a shallow covering of earth over it. If a little of the sur- 

 face be scraped off, and fire be applied to the hollow, it catches immediately, 

 and burns without intermission, and almost without consumption ; nor is ever 

 extinguished, unless some cold earth be thrown over it, by which it is easily 

 put out. 



There is a spot of ground, about 2 English miles broad, which has this very 

 wonderful property ; and here is a caravansary, round which are many places 

 where the earth continually bums ; but the most remarkable is a hole about 4 

 feet deep, and 14 feet in diameter. In this caravansary live 12 Indiaji priests, 

 and other devotees, who worship the fire, which, according to their traditions, 

 lias burnt many thousand years. It is a very old vaulted building, and in its walls 

 are a great many chinks, to which, if a candle be applied, the fire catches instan- 

 taneously, and runs instantly wherever the chinks communicate ; but it may be 

 easily extinguished : they have hollow places in the house fitted to their pots, 

 which they boil without any other fuel , and instead of candles they stick reeds 

 into the ground ; from the tops of which, on applying fire to them, a white 

 flame immediately comes forth, and continues to burn without consuming the 

 reeds, till they think proper to extinguish it, by putting little covers over them 

 for that purpose. 



They bum lime of the stones dug hereabouts, first making a hollow in the 

 ground, and then heaping the stones on each other. This done, on applying 

 fire to the hollow, a flame bursts out, and is dispersed at once with a very great 

 crack through the whole heap of stones ; and after it has continued burning for 

 3 days, the lime is ready : but stones placed in this fire for setting their pots on 

 never turn to lime ; which cannot be made but by heaping them on each other. 

 The earth and stone are no farther warm than where the fire reaches : and what 



