208 
COFLAN KOH. 
When we had reached Zengan, the Ambassador paid a visit to the 
Prince Governor, a youth of very amiable manners. On approaching 
his habitation we found carpets spread under a wall in the street, where 
his Vizier was seated transacting business. This custom may illustrate 
what Job said of the days of his prosperity, when he prepared his seat 
in street^, ch. xxix. 7. 
On the 10th we reached Gultapeh, and departed very early the next 
morning to cross the Kizzil Ozan River, and the Coflan Koh, in 
order to reach the sultry town of Mianeh before the great heat of 
mid-day. 
The Coflan Koh is a range of mountain which would be well worthy 
the notice of a geologist. Its stratifications have been thrown together 
by some great commotion into the most extravagant positions. In 
some places they are perpendicular, in others almost horizontal. On 
the south side of the Kizzil Ozan is one limb of the mountain, almost 
entirely composed of chalk, here and there with schistose strata inter¬ 
vening ; and on the right of the road, in the descent from Gultapeh, 
are hills apparently of clay, of conical forms, more or less distended, the 
strata of which are as horizontal as if mathematically designed. An 
immense tract of barren country is seen from the heights above Gultapeh, 
which extends itself to the westward on both sides of the Kizzil Ozan, 
and also towards Zengan. In some places it appears to have been 
nearly in a state of fusion, as if an immense volume of liquid soil had 
been set in motion, and its sluggish masses had settled themselves as 
the impulse might lead them: in others, as if some powerful engine 
had broken these masses and left them in unequal fragments. 
We experienced at Mianeh one of the many instances in Persia of a 
great difference of climate between two contiguous regions. At Auk- 
kend and Gultapeh the air was so cool as to be even disagreeable dur¬ 
ing some part of the twenty-four hours. At Aukkend, in the hottest 
part of the day, Fahrenheit’s thermometer stood at 75°; at Mianeh at 
991°. 
* This word in the original means a broad place, where was room for administering 
justice. 
