Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1Humboldt, Alexander von
History
Cosmos: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1
Humboldt, Alexander von
Astronomy; Cosmography; Physical geography; Science -- History
[footnote] *[True volcanoes, as we have seen, generate sulphureted hydrogen
and muriatic acid, upheave tracts of land, and omit streams of melted
feldspathic materials; salses, on the contrary, disengage little else but
carbureted hydrogen, together with bitumen and other products of the
distillation of coal, and pour forth no other torrents except of mud, or
argillaceous materials mixed up with water. Daubeney, op cit., p. 540.] --
Tr.
If we consider these mountains as springs of molten earths producing
volcanic rocks, we must remember that thermal water, when impregnated with
carbonic acid and sulphurous gases, are continually forming horizontally
ranged strata of limestone (travertine) or conical elevations, as in
Northern Africa (in Alberia), and in the Banos of Caxamarca, on the western
declivity of the Peruvian Cordilleras. The travertine of Van Diemen's Land
(near Hobart Town) contains, according to Charles Darwin, remains of a
vegetation that no longer exists. Lava and travertine, which are constantly
forming before our eyes, present us with the two extremes of geognostic
relations.
'Salses' deserve more attention than they have hitherto received from
geognosists. Their grandeur has been overlooked because of the two
conditions to which they are subject; it is only the more peaceful state, in
which they may continue for centuries, which has generally been described:
their origin is, however, accompanied by earthquakes, subterranean thunder,
the elevation of a whole district, and lofty emissions of flame of short
duration. When the mud volcano of Jokmali began to form on the 27th of
November, 1827, in the peninsula of Abscheron, on the Caspian Sea, east of
Baku, the flames flashed up to an extraordinary height for three hours,
while during the next twenty hours they scarcely rose three feet above the
crater, from which mud was ejected. Near the village of Baklichli, west of
Baku, the flames rose so high that
p 225
they could be seen at a distance of twenty-four miles. Enormous masses of
rock were torn up and scattered around. Similar masses may be seen round
the now inactive mud volcano of Monte Ziblo, near Sassuolo, in Northern
Italy. The secondary condition of repose has been maintained for upward of
fifteen centuries in the mud volcanoes of Girgenti, the 'Macalubi', in
Sicily, which have been described by the ancients. These salses consist of
many contitiguous conical hills, from eight to ten, or even thirty feet in
height, subject to variations of elevation as well as of form. Streams of
argillaceous mud, attended by a periodic development of gas, flow from the
small basins at the summits, which are filled with water; the mud, although
usualy cold is sometimes at a high temperature, as at Damak, in the province
of Samarang, in the island of Java. The gases that are developed with loud
noise differ in their nature consisting for instance, of hydrogen mixed with
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