FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE. 



523 



great eruption of Vesuvius, on the 12th of August, 1805, Humboldt 

 and Gay-Lussac perceived a bituminous odour prevailing at times in the 

 ignited crater. 



There is not much doubt left now that it is naphtha that burns in 

 several of those remarkable productions of nature, the perpetual burn- 

 ing springs — more especially in the famous Asiatic Chimosra (in Lycia, 

 on the coast of Asia Minor). In many springs of this kind it has been 

 supposed that it was carburetted hydrogen gas (carbide of hydrogen) 

 that burns. "Vi^e see issue from the ground," says Humboldt, speak- 

 ing of gaseous emanations in general, steam and gaseous carbonic 

 acid — almost free from the admixture of nitrogen — carburetted hydrogen 

 gas, which has been used in the Chinese province of Sse-tschaun for 

 several thousand years, and recently in the village of Eredonia, in the 

 State of jS'ew York (U.S.), in cooking and for illumination." Eut it is 

 difficult to account for so continual a supply of gas, always emanating 

 from nearly the same spot. Indeed, this objection might be raised 

 respecting naphtha, but it loses, perhaps, a little of its force in the 

 latter case. 



At the time Captain Beaufort visited the famous Chimoera in Lycia 

 (he published his observations in 1820), it was thought to be a spring 

 of burning carburetted hydrogen gas. Since that time the same spot 

 has been visited by many travellers curious to see a perpetual fire that 

 has been burning now for several thousand years, and which has been 

 spoken of by Piiny,f Seneca, "| Ctesias,§ Strabo,|| among the ancients, 

 and a host of more modern writers. Lieut. Spratt and Professor Edward 

 Forbes found this spring as brilliant as ever, just as Beaufort had left it, 

 perhaps even somewhat increased. They speak of soot being deposited 

 by its flames ; ^ this seems to prove that it is naphtha that burns, and 

 not carburetted hydrogen, for the latter would deposit no soot. But 

 what gives more probability to this assertion is the agreeable odour re- 

 marked near this spring by a more recent traveller, Albert Berg, a dis- 

 tinguished German artist. 



The Chimoera rises from serpentine rocks associated with limestone, 

 somewhat similar to the formation observed by ]\Iurchison and Parets 

 in the districts of Tuscan}^, where the boracic acid fumarolle exist, of 

 which we shall speak presently; and, curious to relate, it appears pro- 

 able, from certain ancient traditions, that some of these boracic acid 

 springs were once luminous (ignited) during the night. 



At the bottom of a crater-like cavity, from which the combustible 

 vapours issue in the Chimoera, is a shallow pool of sulphurous and 

 turbid water, which is regarded by the natives of these parts as a 

 sovereign remedy for all kinds of skin-disease. 



Albert Berg has described the famous Asiatic Chimosra^^''* as follows : 

 " ^N'ear the ruins of the ancient temple of Yulcan rise the remains of a 



* Cosmos, Vol. I. t ii. 106. + Epist. 79. § Fragm. cap. 10. |1 Lib. 14. 

 \ The Turks use this soot as a remedy for sore eyelids, and value it as a dye 

 for the eyebrows. 



** It is situated near the town of Deliktasch, in Lycia (Asia Minor), on the west 

 coast of the Gulf of Adalia. 



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