1834.] Georgia, Persia, and Mesopotamia. 585 



marble. The water appears as if it were frozen, and when the stagna- 

 tion is complete, a man may walk over it. The tendency of this 

 water to become stone is so great, that where it exudes from the 

 ground, the petrifaction assumes a globular shape, like the bubbles of a 

 spring suddenly arrested in their play by a magic wand, and thus con- 

 verted into marble. The stone is nearly transparent, very brittle, and 

 often streaked with veins of various colours. Its general appearance is 

 that of alabaster, and it is capable of receiving a fine polish. It is devoid 

 of fissure, and may be cut into immense slabs. Rushes grow abundant- 

 ly in the ground around, and the neighbourhood is both saline and 

 marshy. This remarkable natural curiosity bears north 20 west, and 

 is about two miles from the lake. 



There are few objects more calculated to arrest the attention of the 

 traveller than this lake, which is considered the Spauto and Marcianus 

 of Strabo and Ptolemy, and is now called Deriah Shahi, the Sea of 

 Shahi, or the Lake of Ourumia, from a town of that name situated on 

 its western bank. This town is the site of the ancient Thebarma. The 

 very same extraordinary circumstance is remarked here as on the shore 

 of the Dead Sea. There is no visible outlet to the lake, notwithstand- 

 ing fourteen rivers are daily flowing into it. No increase in the height 

 of the water is perceptible : on the contrary, signs of diminution are 

 very apparent ; so that the evaporation is greater than the body of 

 water sent into it. There is a very close resemblance between the 

 Lakes Asphaltes and Ourumia. No living creature is found in either ; 

 for as soon as the rivers carry down any of their fish, they instantly die 

 and become putrid. Their waters are the same, intensely cold, and to 

 the taste appearing like a mixture of lime, nitre, and magnesia. The 

 indefatigable and lamented African traveller Browne, found by an ex- 

 periment that this noble sheet of water contained one -third more salt 

 than the sea. Ibn Haukel also remarks, that its waters are so exceed- 

 ingly salt, no fish can exist in them ; and he likewise adds, that its 

 length is about five days' journey. The extreme length of the two seas 

 are the same, seventy miles ; but Ourumia is thrice the breadth of 

 Asphaltes, being about thirty miles. It contains five islands and a 

 peninsula, which are nearly untenanted, except by venomous snakes 

 and other reptiles. Dr. Thomas Shaw, in his Travels into the Holv 

 Land, calculates that the river Jordan daily sends into the Dead Sea six 

 millions and ninety thousand tons of water. " So great a quantity of 

 water," he continues, " being received without any visible increase in 

 the limits of the Dead Sea, hath made some conjecture, that it must be 

 absorbed by the burning sands : others, that there are some subterrane- 

 ous cavities to receive it. Provided the sea should be seventy-two 

 3 F 



