350 Miscellanies. 



a dazzling radiance equal to other suns- The eye, not able to rest, 

 for any length of time, upon the blinding glory of its summits, wan- 

 dered down the apparently interminable sides till their vast lines could 

 be no longer traced in the mists of the horizon ; when the eye was 

 by an irrepressible impulse carried up again to fix its gaze upon the 

 awful glare of Ararat." No one has ascended the peaks of Ararat, 

 which is covered with eternal ice and snow.* 



7. An Internal Volcano. — In the Courdish country there is a hill 

 250 feet high, with a rocky crater forty five feet wide at top and with 

 a funnel-shaped hole, as wide as a well, and quite fathomless. Several 

 stones thrown in produced no report; the natives said that the hole 

 reached through to Yankey Doonia, 1. e. the new world. A register 

 kept at Eitch-mai-adzen for 800 years, makes no mention of any 

 volcanic eruption. 



8. Salt near Tabriz. — Salt is dug in the hills near this place, and 

 the river Augi is perfectly salt. 



9. Salt in Lake Oroomia, about five days journey long. — This 

 water contains one third more salt than the sea ; the lake is hemmed 

 in by a broad border or belt of salt looking at a distance like a vio- 

 lent surf (congealed) ; it is three or four miles wide, and one foot 

 thick, or more in places where the shore shelves or gently slopes. 



10. Salt Mine near Erivan. — There is a salt mine in the hills ; 

 the revenue to the governor of Erivan is about £5,000 sterling- It 

 supplies the neighborhood, and Turks and Georgians repair to it for 

 immense loads ; several hundred bullocks were at the time carrying 

 it away in large slabs like alabaster. There are excavations in the 

 mountain in vast galleries and caverns giving a dazzling reflection 

 from ihe surface when any light strikes them ; the salt has been 

 vcrought from the earliest times, gives great supplies, and is not yet 

 exhausted. 



11. Salt of the Great Salt Desert. — Lat. 35° N. Long. 70° E. 

 — There is a copious salt stream and over some hills is seen the salt 

 desert, and east and southwest a vast region of sand reaching to the 

 horizon. The large tracts of salt appeared in the distance, spotting 

 the burning plain like so many shining lakes, one fourth of an inch 

 thick and smooth as a mirror ; the view was one of awful grandeur, 

 connected as sandy deserts usually are with " consuming blasts, over- 

 whelming sands and the burying of thousands of human beings." 



* Sir R. K. P. thinks that the ark rested in the hollow between the two peaks. 



