358 



VOLCANO IN CENTRAL ASIA. 



This concavity 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 com- 

 pared with Bohemia than with our volcanic cones 

 and craters. 



In the course of the journey which Humboldt made 

 in the summer of 1829 with MM. Ehrenberg and Rose, 

 he passed in seven weeks over the frontiers of Chi- 

 nese Zungaria, between the forts of Oust-Kameno- 

 gorsk, 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, Petropalauska, Troitzkaia, 

 Orenburg, and Astracan, he obtained from Tartars, 

 Bucharians, and Tachkendis information respecting 

 the Asiatic regions in the vicinity of their native 

 country. At Orenburg, where caravans of several 

 thousand camels annually arrive, an enlightened in- 

 dividual, M. de Gens, has collected a mass of mate- 

 rials of the highest importance for the geography of 

 Central Asia. Among the numerous descriptions 

 of routes communicated by this person, our author 

 found the following remark : — " In proceeding from 

 Semipolatinsk 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 

 waters of the Ele, we saw a very high mountain 

 which formerly vomited fire. Even now this moun- 

 tain, which rises in the lake like a little island, oc- 

 casions violent storms, which incommode the cara- 

 vans. For this reason some sheep are sacrificed to 

 this old volcano by those who pass it." 



This account, which was obtained from a Tartar 

 who travelled at the commencement of the present 

 century, excited a lively interest in our author, more 

 especially as it brought to mind the burning volca- 

 noes of the interior of Asia, made known through 



