118 Things not generally Known. 



by Captain Beaufort. It was found by Lieutenant Spratt and 

 Professor Forbes, thirty years later, as brilliant as ever, and 

 somewhat increased ; for besides the large flame in the corner 

 of the ruins described by Beaufort, there were small jets issuing 

 from crevices in the side of the crater- like cavity five or six feet 

 deep. At the bottom was a shallow pool of sulphureous and 

 turbid water, regarded by the Turks as a sovereign remedy for 

 all skin complaints. The soot deposited from the flames was 

 held to be efficacious for sore eyelids, and valued as a dye for 

 the eyebrows. This phenomenon is described by Pliny as the 

 flame of the Lycian Chimera. 



AETESIAN FIRE- SPRINGS IN CHINA. 



According to the statement of the missionary Imbert, the 

 Fire-Springs, " Ho-tsing" of the Chinese, which are sunk to 

 obtain a carburetted-hydrogen gas for salt-boiling, far exceed 

 our artesian springs in depth. These springs are very com- 

 monly more than 2000 feet deep ; and a spring of continued 

 flow was found to be 3197 feet deep. This natural gas has 

 been used in the Chinese province Tse-tschuan for several 

 thousand years ; and "portable gas" (in bamboo-canes) has for 

 ages been used in the city of Khiung-tscheu. More recently, 

 in the village of Fredonia, in the United States, such gas has 

 been used both for cooking and for illumination. 



VOLCANIC ACTION THE GREAT AGENT OF GEOLOGICAL 

 CHANGE. 



Mr. James Nasmyth observes, that " the floods of molten lava which 

 volcanoes eject are nothing less than remaining 1 portions of what was 

 once the condition of the entire globe when in the igneous state of its 

 early physical history, no one knows how many years ago ! 



" When we behold the glow and feel the heat of molten lava, how 

 vastly does it add to the interest of the sight when we consider that the 

 heat we feel and the light we see are the residue of the once universal 

 condition of our entire globe, on whose cooled surface we now live and 

 have our being ! But so it is ; for if there be one great fact which geo- 

 logical research has established beyond all doubt, it is that we reside 

 on the cooled surface of what was once a molten globe, and that all the 

 phenomena which geology has brought to light can be most satisfac- 

 torily traced to the successive changes incidental to its gradual cooling 

 and contraction. 



'" That the influx of the sea into the yet hot and molten interior of 

 the globe may occasionally occur, and enhance and vary the violence of 

 the phenomenon of volcanic action, there can be little doubt ; but the 

 action of water in such cases is only secondary. But for the pre-existing 

 high temperature of the interior of the earth, the influx of water would 

 produce no such discharges of molten lava as generally characterise vol- 

 canic eruptions. Molten lava is therefore a true vestige of the Natural 

 History of the Creation." 



