ELEVATIONS BETWEEN THE CASPIAN AND THE ARAL. 
313 
ancient tertiary deposits, other uprisings and ebullitions have been continually m 
activity. Among the prominent features of the latter are the fountains of naphtha 
and the hot saline springs (an eastern continuation of those ol Baku and its sacred 
fires), which bursting out in some spots from the bottom of the sea, rise up through 
all the adjacent lands, penetrating the Isle of Tcheleken and the adjoining coast. 
In that tract, the strata composed of clay, sand and shelly agglomerates, all evi- 
dently formed under the waters of the Caspian, are so saturated with naphtha, salt 
springs and iron ores, and are so altered, hardened and thrown about at various 
levels, that they acquaint us in terms too plain to be misunderstood, how these 
former sea-bottoms have been placed in their present position, and brought into 
their peculiar actual condition ; whilst huge masses of the coast cliffs (exceeding 
100 feet in height), remote from such lines of eruption, are seen to be composed ot 
horizontal layers of unaltered shelly limestone of the Aralo-Caspian dateb In 
alluding to the naphtha springs, we are, however, touching upon phenomena which, 
ancient as may have been their origin, are agents now actually effecting changes ; 
so dismissing for the present their consideration, we may revert to them towards 
the close of this work, as the last of a long series of causes of alteration in the 
outline of the earth. 
In the mean time we further glean from the travels of Captain Abbott, that in one 
district near the eastern shore of the Caspian, where the ground rises to consider- 
able altitude (1500 feet according to this author), viz. in the ridge between the 
Gulfs of Munghis-lak and Tiuk-kara, the hills are chiefly composed of red sand- 
stone. Having shown how Permian rocks of that character trend far to the south 
of Orenburg, and that, they have been observed by other travellers near the sources 
of the Emba, where they are associated with igneous rocks, we cannot avoid sug- 
gesting, that the hills of Munghis-lak, constituting a portion of the Ust-Urt, may 
be considered one of the terminal embranchments of the Ural. Baron Humboldt 
has, indeed, previously expressed his opinion, that the Ust-Urt is the direct pro- 
longation of the Mughodjar and Airuk hills, the southernmost rocky masses of that 
> Whilst we write, we are informed by our friend Colonel Helmersen, that another Russian traveller, 
M. Basiner, a botanist, has very recently explored the hanks of the Aral Sea to Khivah, and that having 
there collected both fossil and recent shells, he will throw new light upon tins interesting subject Count 
Keyserlin” 1 adds in another letter, that M. Basiner has brought back to St. Petersburgh shells of different 
tertiary age ; the Valuta ambigua (vat. V. luctator) for example, found in the deep valleys, seems to indicate 
the presence of the London clay ; the Mactra ponderosa in an oolite must represent our miocene, p. 294 ; 
whilst the superior masses are the steppe or our Aralo-Caspian limestones. 
