VOLCANO IN CENTRAL ASIA. 413 
var-ul-Nahar to the south ; and, perhaps, more to 
the eastward, with the elevation of the great mass of 
land, which is designated by the vague and incor- 
rect name of the central plain of Asia. This con- 
cavity he considers as a crater-country, similar to 
the Hipparchus, Archimedes, and Ptolemy, of the 
moon’s surface, which have a diameter of more than 
100. miles, and which may be rather compared with 
Bohemia than with our volcanic cones and craters. 
In the course of the journey which Humboldt 
made in the summer of 1629 with MM. Ehren- 
berg and Rose, he passed in seven weeks over the 
frontiers of Chinese Zungaria, between the forts 
of Oust-Kamenogorsk, and Boukhtarminsk, and 
Khonimailakhou (a Chinese post to the north of 
the Lake Dzaisang), the Cossack line of the Kirghiz 
steppe, and the shores of the Caspian Sea. In the 
important commercial towns of Semipolatinsk, Pe- 
tropalauska, Troitzkaia, Orenburg, and Astracan, 
he obtained from Tartars, Bucharians, and Tach- 
kendis, information respecting the Asiatic regions 
in the vicinity of their native country. At Oren- 
burg, where caravans of several thousand camels 
annually arrive, an enlightened individual, M. de 
Gens, has collected a mass of materials of the high- 
est importance for the geography of Central Asia. 
Among the numerous descriptions of routes com- 
municated by this person, our author found the fol- 
lowing remark :— In proceeding from Semipola- 
tinsk to Jerkend, when we were arrived at the Lake 
Ala-koul or Ala-dinghiz, a little to the north-east 
of the great Lake Balkachi which receives the wa- 
ters of the Ele, we saw a very high mountain which 
formerly vomited fire. Even now this mountain, 
which rises in the lake like a little island, occasions 
