On Mud Volcanoes and Salt Lakes in the Crimea. 411 



action, extending from, the Putrid Sea in the Crimea to the 

 south flanks of the Caucasus, and thence to the Caspian Sea, 

 where in the long-celebrated naphtha springs of Baku, and 

 the more recently known, but not less important, springs and 

 mud volcanoes of several islands on the eastern side of the 

 Caspian, there, appear to be large and inexhaustible supplies of 

 mineral oil, whose issue is accompanied by emanations of gas. 

 The naphtha springs of Baku are repeated with accompanying 

 mud volcanoes near Tefiis, and the petroleum springs of the 

 Crimea are repeated in like manner on the flanks of the 

 Carpathians. 



One of the most recent published statements of the com- 

 mencement of a mud volcano, is referred to by Humboldt in 

 the first volume of the Cosmos. The case is remarkable for 

 the extraordinary height of the flames, and it occurred near 

 Baku, in a district in which it is not unusual for columns of 

 burning gas to be continually flaming from holes in the earth, 

 connected with large deposits of petroleum. There is thus a 

 relation suggested, which a further consideration of the position 

 of mud volcanoes will, I think, show to be real and not fanciful. 



I now proceed to the description of the instances recently 

 visited by myself, or made out by careful inquiry on the spot. 

 These localities alluded to are near the town of Kertch, in the 

 Crimea, being within a hundred miles to the east, and the same 

 distance to the west of that spot. The whole district occupies 

 an interval between the Caucasus range and the mountain 

 range of the south of the Crimea. The former is chiefly 

 cretaceous, and culminates in the lofty mountain of Blburz, 

 rising to the height of 18,500 feet. The latter is Jurassic, and 

 its highest point is 5185 feet. Except the Delta of the Danube^ 

 there are only the low hills of the Dobrudcha and the plains 

 of Wallachia, between the extremity of the Crimean range and 

 the eastern Carpathians, which rise in cretaceous peaks to nearly 

 ten thousand feet. Mount Elburz itself is volcanic, and there 

 is a vast development of basaltic rock a little to the south from 

 Tefiis to Mount Ararat, which as I have showed is a volcanic 

 cone. 



Although, however, the mud volcanoes are near volcanic 

 rock, and connected in all probability with volcanic agency, 

 they all break out in clayey and marly strata of the tertiary 

 age. A broad tract of older, middle, and newer tertiaries, con- 

 sisting of alternate bands of marl and clay, with overlying 

 limestones often unconformable, extends uninterruptedly on the 

 northern side of the Caucasus and the Crimean chain, occupy- 

 ing the whole of the vast plains so characteristic of that part 

 of Europe and Asia. It is through faults in the clays and other 

 lower rocks — all, however, tertiary — that the water rises charged 



