THE HUMAN SPECIE3. 141 



of a mile frcm the water's edge. The level varies occasionally 

 six or seven feet ; and small volcanic cones still break forth on 

 its shores. In the lake, or rather bay of Ensili, three new 

 islands have appeared since 1811, already showing several 

 willows upon them ; and the back water of the Gemishawas is 

 become fordable, though, until recently, it was not to be trav- 

 ersed, the river waters having sensibly diminished. The Cas- 

 pian is the Deryah Kolsum of the Arabs, because it is covered 

 with a mist ever han2rin£ on the water. 



ASIA MINOR. 



Asia Minor appears subjected to the action of at least two 

 subterranean volcanic galleries, which, in connection with the 

 Italian system of ignitions, passing beneath the Egean, are the 

 agents of convulsion in that sea; and in Greece and Thessaly, 

 produce those mephitic localities, inflammable rivers, and 

 gaseous exhalations, which were used in mythological doctrines 

 and in the prophetic impositions of the Delphic oracle. 



Others, of at least equal antiquity, existed on the Asiatic 

 side; and although no conspicuous volcanic crater is pointed 

 out in the peninsula, excepting at the present Dopos Kalesi, 

 and at Koolah in Catacecaumene, where the lava district 

 reveals volcanic agency, apparently not long dormant. There 

 is, also, at the extremity of the Bosphorus, where the Cyanean 

 craters are submerged, a recent lava formation, particularly 

 conspicuous on the Asiatic shore. 



No region has been more constantly disturbed by earth- 

 quakes than this high peninsula, from the earliest period to the 

 present; but perhaps most so during the Roman sway, when, 

 in the reign of Tiberius, fourteen, and in that of Julian not less 

 than one hundred and fifty cities were destroyed in one con- 

 vulsion. 



