SALSES. 203 



becomes difFased -in the atmosphere in consequence of its 

 volatility. The acid is only procured in the beautiful estab- 

 lishments of Count Larderel, when the orifices of the soffioni 

 are covered directly by the fluid of the basin.* According 

 to Payen's excellent analysis, the gaseous emanations contain 

 0-57 of carbonic acid, 0-35 of nitrogen, and only 0*07 of 

 oxygen, and 0-001 of sulphuric acid. Where the boracic 

 acid vapors permeate the clefts of the rock they deposit sul- 

 phur. According to Sir Roderick Murchison's investiga- 

 tions, the rock is in part of a chalky nature, and in part an 

 eocene formation, containing nummulites — a macigno, which 

 is penetrated by the uncovered and elevated serpentinef of 

 the neighborhood (near Monte Rotondo). In this case, and 

 in the crater of Volcano, asks Bischof, do not hot aqueous 

 vapors act upon and decompose boracic minerals, such as 

 rocks rich in datolithe, axinite, or tourmalin ^J 



In the variety and grandeur of the phenomena, the sys- 

 tem of soffioni in Iceland exceeds any thing that we are ac- 

 quainted with on the continent. Actual mud springs burst 

 forth in the fumarole-field of l^risuvek and Reykjalidh, from 

 small basins with crater-like margins in a bluish-gray clay.§ 

 Here also the fissures of the springs may be traced in de- 



* Pay en, De Vacii^e boracique des Suffioni de la Toscane, in the An- 

 nales de Chimie et de Physique, 3me serie, t. i., 1841, p. 247-255 : Bis- 

 chof, Chem. und Phjsik. Geologie, bd. i., s. 669-691 ; Etablissements in- 

 dustriels de Vacide boracique enToscane,hy the Count de Larderel, p. 8. 



t Sir Roderick Irapey Murchison, On the Vents of hot Vopor in Tus- 

 vany, 1850, p. 7 (see also the earlier geognostic observations of Hoff- 

 mann, in Karsten's und Dechen's Archiv/Ur Mineral., bd. xiii., 1839, 

 s. 19). From old but trustworthy traditions, Targioni Tozzeti asserts 

 that some of these boracic acid springs which are constantly changing 

 their place of eruption were once seen to be luminous (ignited) at 

 night. In order to increase the geological interest of the observations 

 of Murchison andPkreto upon the volcanic relations of the serpentine 

 formation in Italy, I may here advert to the fact that the flame of the 

 Asiatic Chimcera (near the town of Deliktasch, the ancient Phaselis 

 in Lycia, on the west coast of the Gulf of Adalia), which has been 

 burning for several thousand years, also rises from a hill on the slope 

 of the Solimandagh, in which serpentine in position and blocks of 

 limestone have been found. Rather more to the south, on the small 

 island of Grambusa, the limestone is deposited upon dark-colored 

 serpentine. See the important work of Admiral Beaufort (Survey of 

 the Coasts of Caramania, 1818, p. 40 and 48), whose statements arc 

 confirmed by the specimens of rocks just brought home (May, 1854) 

 by a highly talented artist, Albrecht Berg (Pierre de TchihatchefF, Asie 

 Mineure, 1853, t. i., p. 407). J Bischof, o;?. cit., s. 682. 



() Sartorius von Waltershausen, Physisch-geographische Skizze von 

 Island, 1847, s. 123 ; Bunsen " upon the processes of formation of the 

 volcanic rocks of Iceland," Poggend., Annalen, bd. Ixxxiii., s. 257*. 



