384 Description of Molizarhhala in Western Huzara. [No. 4. 



This tarn is said to be unfathomable, but the most remarkable 

 circumstance about it, is the bituminous nature of the water and its 

 nauseously bitter taste. It imparts a stinging sensation to the 

 naked skin, apparently similar to that felt from bathing in the Dead 

 Sea. Mr. Gardiner imprudently waded into it, in a vain attempt to 

 sound it, which he failed in doing with a line of 55 fathoms ; and 

 he suffered for sometime from the effect of the waters on his skin. 



Occasionally balls of fire are said to play over the surface, which 

 is probably owing to the escape of sulphuretted hydrogen gas. The 

 waters, though intensely cold, have the appearance of ebullition, from 

 the continual escape of gas. On one side was a deposit of sulphur. 



Although fed from a glacier, the pool has no visible outlet, and 

 is said never to change its level, save once during an earthquake 

 when it rose several yards above its banks. 



Proceeding to the south side of the valley they ascended a mound 

 of loose debris, and found that the earthquake, that had occurred a 

 few days before, had blocked up the mouth of two of the three 

 caverns they went to see. The most westerly of them, however, was 

 still accessible. The entrance, elevated a few feet above the ground 

 on the face of a bluff rock, was nearly concealed by a veil of mossy 

 vegetation fed by springs oozing from the rocks. On further ex- 

 amination, it proved to be of an irregular oval form, about 3| feet high 

 by 2\ broad. There were no marks of artificial labour visible on the 

 rock, which seemed to be porphyritic, dark-red in colour, with black 

 markings, and of extreme hardness. In position it rests on granite, 

 and lies below primitive limestone. The glacis below is formed of a 

 confused mixture of granite, greenstone and limestone. 



Lighting their torches of split pine, they entered the cave. The 

 first adit, for about 75 feet long, gradually enlarged, (they could only 

 pass in a crouching posture), then it again contracted, but finally 

 opened into an apartment 20 % 15, and eight feet high in the centre. 



At the further end of this room was a rude image in high relief 

 on a smoothed and squared surface, about 4^ feet high. Two short 

 and thick legs supported a large thick body surmounted by four 

 extended arms, and two heads rising from one thick neck. 



Over the head were some emblems which Mr. Gardiner supposes 

 to mean the sun and moon, but which, from the sketch he gives, I 



