696 
The entire range of this bed of salt is not known, but the mass has 
been ascertained to extend two versts in one direction, and Mr. 
Murchison is of opinion that it constitutes the subsoil of a very large 
area; its entire thickness also does not appear to have been deter- 
mined, but it is stated to exceed 100 feet. The upper surface of 
the deposit is very irregular, penetrating, in some places, as already 
mentioned, the overlying sands and marls. 
In consequence of the salt occurring at so small a depth every 
pool supplied with springs from below is affected by it*; and one 
of them used by the inhabitants as a bath is so highly charged with 
saline contents that there is a difficulty in keeping’ the body sub- 
merged, and the skin on leaving the pool is encrusted with salt. 
This brine swarms with ‘animalcules. 
(2.) Mr. Murchison then describes the freezing cavern and the 
phenomena exhibited by it. ‘The cave is situated at the southern 
base of a hillock of gypsum at the eastern end of the village con- 
nected with the imperial establishment ; and it is one of a series of 
apparently, for the greater part, natural hollows, used by the pea- 
santry for cellars or stores. The cave in question is, however, the 
only one which possesses the singular property of being partially 
filled with ice in summer and of being destitute of it in winter. 
‘Standing on the heated ground and under a broiling sun, I shall 
never forget,” says the author, ‘“‘my astonishment when the woman 
to whom the cavern belonged unlocked a trail door and a volume 
of air so piercingly keen struck the legs and feet that we were glad 
to rush into a cold bath in front of us to equalize the effect.” Three 
or four feet within the door and on a level with the village street, 
beer and quash were half frozen. A little further the narrow chasm 
opened into a vault fifteen feet high, ten paces long, and from seven 
to eight wide, which seemed to send off irregular fissures into the bedy 
of the hillock. The whole of the roof and sides were hung with solid 
undripping icicles, and the floor was covered with hard snow, ice, 
or frozen earth. During the winter all these phenomena disappear, 
and when the external air is very cold and all the country is frozen 
up, the temperature of the cave is such that the Russians state they 
could sleep in it without their sheep-skins. 
In order to lay before the Society an explanation of these curious 
opposite conditions of the cave, the author communicated with Sir 
Jobn Herschel and received the documents which follow this abstract. 
With respect to the observations in Sir J. Herschel’s letter, Mr. Mur- 
chison says, he does not conceive that the ice caverns at Teneriffe, in 
Auvergne and elsewhere are analogous cases with that at Illetzkaya 
Zatchita, the frozen materials in the last not arising from the pre- 
* The abundance of these brine-springs in various parts of Russia must 
lead, the author says, to the abandonment of Pallas’s hypothesis, that the 
saline pools and lakes are the residue of former Caspians ; though he admits 
that some of the vast low steppes of the South formed the bottom of a for- 
mer condition of the existing Caspian. 
