348 Miscellanies. 



Being himself an artist, he enjoyed and enables his readers to 

 enjoy the highest advantage of vivid graphic sl-ietches, made on the 

 spot, and thus his great work is rendered perfectly intelligible and 

 highly impressive and delightfnl. He disclaims all skill as a writer, 

 while his intellectual sketches vie with those of his pencil, and his 

 eloquent and beautiful descriptions leave the strongest and- most 

 agreeable impressions on the mind. 



In perusing his work we made short notes of subjects relating chiefly 

 to physical facts and phenomena, and especially to geology. Although 

 they were made merely for private reference, we have thought on a 

 reperusal fifteen months from their date, after our first vivid impres- 

 sions have subsided, that they may be useful to others cultivating 

 similar fields of knowledge, and we therefore insert them under our 

 miscellany. They are more condensed than they would have been 

 had we selected them originally with reference to the present use, but 

 as we have no copy of the work we cannot revise them either for en- 

 largement or for correction. 



1. Vol. I, p. 75. The Caitcastjs Range is described with the re- 

 markable Pass of Darial on the river Terek, where there is a chasm 

 of 1,000 feet high, while the general elevation of the mountain range 

 is not less than 3,780* feet. 



2. Basalt.— J/i the valley are Basaltic Columns arranged in huge 

 masses over the surface of the mountain, and taking various direc- 

 tions ; some shoot horizontally into its side, some stand in erect piles 

 against it, and others incline mure or less from the perpendicular ; 

 resembling the palaces, castles, temples, embattled walls, and other 

 ruins of some vast antediluvian city. 



This basaltic valley exhibits the most extraordinary features. It 

 appears not only as already remarked like the ruins of some vast city, 

 but on the top of one of its clifTs are the ruins of a real ancient tower, 

 or castle, or temple, probably Roman. 



The basaltic columns have sometimes serpent-like forms — twining 

 together or radiating in a hundred points : others are again perfectly 

 perpendicular, forming vast and sublimely pillared walls ; or they 

 are horizontal or traverse each other obliquely, or, perhaps tumble 

 together in all directions — standing, lying, and leaning, composing 

 the wildest and most picturesque combinaliono. The columns are in 

 general pentagons, usually with the upper surface convex like those 

 of the giant's causeway ; texture close, color dark grey. In gene- 



* Mount Elborus is the liighest point being 16,700 feet above the sea level. 

 Mount Kasibeck is 14,400 feet ; both are covered by eternal snow. 



