1865.] 



Notes and Correspondence. 



757 



and salt lakes that meet one at 

 every turn in this curious country. 

 It must not be supposed, however, 

 that all the innumerable conical 

 hills and hillocks seen in the East- 

 ern Crimea are of volcanic origin. 

 It is as certain that a great many 

 are of purely artificial origin, as 

 that others are natural, and built 

 up entirely of mud. Nowhere, for 

 instance, are tumuli so common, 

 nowhere are old cairns more sys- 

 tematic, and nowhere have real hills 

 been more curiously encased and 

 cut into definite shapes by an- 

 cient peoples who once inhabited 

 these lands. But nowhere, also, 

 is it easier to recognize the little 

 cone derived from the slow out- 

 pouring of soft mud, and distin- 

 guish the natural crater of an 

 extinct volcano, though it may 

 now be a pool of rain water. 



Fig. 1. — Section across the Valley of Beshevli. 



7$ 



A. Limestones nearly horizontal. 



B. Shaley clays dipping 45°, but in opposite 



directions on the two sides of the valley. 



a. Pits to the oil-bearing bed d. 



b. Boring down 500 feet in clays. 



c. Bed of iron oxide. 



d. Oil-bearing bed. 



Horizontal Scale — One inch to a mile. 



As a general rule, the petroleum 

 wells are at some little distance 

 from the mud volcanoes and the 

 salt lakes. One of the most re- 

 markable groups is that of Beshevli, 

 about fifteen miles west of Kertch. 

 The valley in which the springs are 

 found is of considerable length, 

 running east and west. A section 

 across the valley at a place where 

 several natural sections show the 

 structure is given in the above 

 diagram. A well-defined band of 

 nodular clay ironstone (c), some 

 inches thick, is seen in a small 

 ravine, dipping 56° SSE. About 60 



yards to the north, at b, is a rotten 

 bluish clay, cropping out at the 

 surface, loaded with naphtha. Into 

 this clay a hole dug two feet rapidly 

 becomes filled .with naphtha to a 

 depth of some inches, and on reach- 

 ing this clay, by wells dug from 20 

 to 50 feet, very uniform and impor- 

 tant supplies are produced. Some 

 of this naphtha is of a deep-green 

 colour, thin and transparent. 



The oil-bed at Beshevli crops out 

 along a line more than a mile in 

 length in the valley of the same 

 name, and probably extends farther, 

 in both directions, than it has yet 

 been proved. Numerous old wells, 

 dug by the Tatars, are to be found 

 along the line, and I counted up- 

 wards of twenty modern sinkings, 

 varying from a few feet to about 50 

 feefc, all of which had been more or 

 less successful. Many others, sunk 

 at a little distance from the line 

 thus marked, and to a much 

 greater depth, were failures. 

 One in the lowest part of the 

 valley (b), bored 500 feet to the 

 north, a little beyond the crop, 

 yielded no trace. About half a 

 mile farther to the north there 

 were springs so loaded with sul- 

 phur, as to coat the water with 

 a film to a great distance, and 

 cover all the rocks in the neigh- 

 bourhood. At the place (e) where 

 these springs come out. limestone 

 overlies the rotten clays, shales, 

 and ironstones unconformably. The 

 rock itself that yields the sulphur, 

 dips heavily to the north, and thus 

 shows the presence of a fault or 

 anticlinal axis in the valley, be- 

 tween a and e. There was every- 

 where proof that near the place 

 where the belt of naphtha wells is 

 traceable, there was a change of dip 

 marking local disturbance and dis- 

 placement of the strata. 



Although the petroleum springs 

 of the valley of Beshevli have not 

 actually been traced more than 

 about 2,000 yards from east to 

 west, there are, as I have already 

 mentioned, good indications of the 

 continuance of the same condition 



