Miscellanies. 849 



ral the masses shoot up from the valley vertically to the height of 

 300 to 4C0 feet; at the siimrr.il there is a short receding ledge of 

 rocks sloping inwards, and thence springs a second wall of columns 

 running up to the same height ; then comes another slope and another 

 wall and so on till these successions of terraces and basaltic super- 

 structures terminate at the top of the mountain under a thick stratum 

 of shapeless rock. Consequently the entire height of these groups 

 or successions of columnar terraces must be from 1,000 to 2,000 or 

 more feet high. 



3. FLoo'Ds.—rimnense floods, arising from the thawing of the snows, 

 throw down tremendous avalanches of rocks. There was a deluge 

 in the Caucasus in June, 1776, when the water rose 258 feet; the 

 depth of the snow rolled down owing to the fall of the peak of the 

 Kasibeck was 186 feet ; it dammed the Terek for twelve days, when 

 it burst away in an overwhelming torrent, resounding louder than 

 thunder, and burying valleys, villages, and people under snow, ice, 

 and rocky ruins. 



4. Hot Baths. — Near Tiflis (Geo.) the hot water is very abundant, 

 feeding the baths; the temperature at their source is 42. R^ 94i F: 

 the smell is sulphureous; there is a great number of baths frequented 

 by all classes, and every thing about them is wet and dirty ; the 

 baths are excavated in the solid rock over which the water formerly 

 flowed. In the female apartments there was no disguise; the females 

 did not shrink from observation. At Elija, near one of the sources 

 of the Euphrates, there is a hot spring where three or four buffaloes 

 were enjoying the bath, and about fifteen or twenty boys were play- 

 ing beneath them. 



5. Boiling Spring near the Akhoor River. — The spring issues 

 from the ground with volumes of steam, wreathing in white clouds 

 through the air. 



6. Ararat — Extinct Volcano near Mount Ararat — There is 

 no verdure, but universal sterility ; all parts are covered with volca- 

 nic stones or masses like cinders, black, heavy and honey-combed, 

 as if thrown from an iron-forge. A hill near Ararat is evidently an 

 extinct volcano, athough no author mentions any volcano near to this 

 mountain. 



From the plain below Ararat appeared " as if the hugest moun- 

 tains in the world had been piled upon each other to form this one 

 sublime immensity of earth, and rock, and snow. The icy peaks of 

 its double heads rose majestically into the clear and cloudless heav- 

 ens : the sun blazed bright upon them ; and the reflection sent forth 



