On Mud Volcanoes and Salt Lalces in the Crimea. 409 



ON MUD VOLCANOES AND SALT LAKES IN THE 



CRIMEA. 



BY PROFESSOR D. T. ANSTED, M.A., E.R.S. 



A recent visit to the eastern part of tlie Crimea, and the flanks 

 of the Caucasus, and a previous acquaintance with part of the 

 Carpathian chain, have suggested to me a relation of some 

 importance between mud volcanoes, volcanic eruptions of the 

 ordinary kind, and the form of large tracts of land elevated 

 above the water level. The following remarks, founded on 

 these observations, are partly descriptive and partly practical, 

 as referring to economic products. The phenomena of mud 

 volcanoes have not perhaps attracted that amount of attention 

 that seems due to their great extent, wide range, and general 

 parallelism, with lines of elevation on a large scale. 



The form and extent of land of the old world may be said 

 to depend on certain grand physical facts outlined in the 

 mountain chains. Excluding those mountain chains, which, 

 from the complete denudation they have undergone, may be 

 regarded as of very ancient date — chains in which the only 

 really igneous rocks are now greenstones, and of which only 

 the hard metamorphic and crystalline rocks remain, it is not 

 difficult to define the line of elevation or general axis along 

 which upheaving forces have acted on the largest scale. In 

 the old world this line or axis is distinctly double, and an im- 

 portant space is contained between the two axes. Thus the 

 northern axis, commencing with the Pyrenees, is continued by the 

 main chain of the Alps and the Carpathian mountains, connects 

 by the Crimean chain with the Caucasus, and by that again with 

 the Hindu Koosh and the mountains of the north of China. 

 The southern line commences with the Atlas mountains, and 

 runs on, though not without interruptions, by the mountains of 

 Ethiopia and Arabia to the vast culminating mountains of the 

 Himalayan range. Approaching the Pacific, the mountain line 

 or axis of elevation becomes north and south, corresponding 

 with and meeting that of the great American continent. 



But between these two main lines of mountain, which con- 

 sists chiefly of stratified rocks, either entirely masked or only 

 partially metamorphosed, there exists a number of districts, 

 having the same general direction, remarkable for volcanoes or 

 for volcanic rocks of comparatively recent date. Among the 

 volcanoes, some few, as Etna and Vesuvius, are active ; others, 

 as Mount Ararat and some of the highest of the anti-Taurus 

 chain, are exceeding lofty, and are now not erupting, but have 

 been in activity during the later tertiary period. In many 



