416 On Mud Volcanoes and Salt Lalces in the Crimea. 



face. This is all done in the open air, and a small kind of 

 wooden parasol is so placed, as to prevent the eyes and face 

 froni being injured by the fierce burning heat of the sun. The 

 patient thus completely buried in the black stinking mud, is 

 left exposed to the sun for a considerable time, and soon breaks 

 out into a profuse perspiration. It is said, that on being 

 removed and placed in a bath of fresh water, the body is found 

 to be much less blackened and dirtied than might be imagined. 

 It is certain that a finger placed in the mud cannot be cleaned 

 without much trouble. The perspiration is believed to be the 

 cause of the difference, and there are left m the mud, after the 

 bather has removed, small pools in the depressed parts of the 

 moulds that seem to afford proof of this part of the efficacy of 

 the treatment. At the time of my visit, the establishment, 

 which consisted of a few constructions of planks, contained only 

 two patients, but this was at the commencement of the season. 

 I saw the forms or moulds of these victims after they had 

 bathed, and they were interesting and curious enough, the 

 whole outline and shape of the body being perfectly recog- 

 nizable. 



I have described the nature of the water and mud of this 

 curious lake, because it is really of great interest in reference to 

 the natural history of the district. The lake in question is, I 

 believe, one of the results of the peculiar action that under some 

 circumstances results in the formation of the crater of a mud 

 volcano. This lake is, in fact, the connecting link between the 

 mud volcanoes, eruptions of naphtha, salme waters, and 

 sulphurous gases frequent near the extremity of the Crimea, 

 and recurring in the fetid exhalations of the Putrid Sea, which 

 are due to precisely similar causes, and which again may be 

 traced across the southern steppes to the flanks of the Car- 

 pathians, where petroleum springs and mineral oil exist in 

 considerable quantities. 



To the south-west of the town of Kertch, at a distance of 

 about five miles, is one large inactive cone, within a large 

 crater, and immediately adjacent are a number of hillocks, 

 consisting of mud erupted from mud volcanoes which are still 

 active. A line of such hillocks extends for some miles towards 

 the east, and a line of petroleum wells is traceable in the same 

 direction. In one of these traces of naphtha were reached at a 

 depth of only 1 7 feet from the surface. The well was sunkthrough 

 clays and ironstone bands, inclined at an angle of more than 

 45° to N., and at a depth of about 60 feet from the surface, a 

 large quantity of oil, appai'ently a steady supply, was reached at 

 a peculiar sandstone loaded with bitumen. Other wells and 

 borings beyond the outcrop of these sandstones, and also 

 beyond the mud-volcano to the south, failed in getting any 



