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Show ANNOTATION AND ADDITIONS. 85 Pas (Ka chgar-dawan); the Glacier Pas of Djepo.rle, which leads to Kutch and Aksu in the Tarim Basin; the volcano of Pe-schan, which sent forth fire and streams of lava at least as late as the middle of the seventh century; the great, snow-covered, massive elevation, Bogdo-Oola; the Solfatara of U rumsti, which furnishes sulphur and sal-ammoniac (nao-scha), and is situated in a coal-district; the still active volcano of Turfan (or volcano of Ho-tscheu or Bischbalik), almost midway between the meridians of Turfan (Kune-Turpan), and of Pidjan. The volcanic eruptions of the Thian-schan chain, recorded by Chinese historians, reach as far back as the year 89 A. D., when the Hiongnu of the sources of the Irtysh were pursued by the Chinese army as far as Kutch and Kharaschar (Klaproth, Tableau hist. de l' Asie, p. 108). The Chinese General, Teu-hian, surmounted the Thian-schan, and saw "the Fire Mountains which send out masses of molten rock that flow for many Li." The great distance from the sea of the volcanoes of the interior of Asia, is a remarkable and solitary phenomenon. Abel Remusat, in a letter to Cordier (Annales des Mines, t. v. 1820, p. 137), first directed the attention of geologists to this fact. The distance for example, in the case of the volcano of Pe-schan, to the north, or to the Icy Sea at the mouth of the Obi, is 1528 geographical miles; to the south, or to the mouths of the Indus and the Ganges, 1512 geographical miles; to the west, 1360 geographical miles to the Caspian in the Gulf of Karaboghaz; and to the east, 1020 geographical miles to the shores of the Sea of Aral. The active volcanoes of the New World were previously supposed to offer the most remarkable instances of such phenomena at a great distance from the sea; their distance, however, is only 132 geographical miles, in the case of the volcano of Popocatepetl in Mexico, and only 92,104, and 156 geographical miles in those of the South American volcanoes Sangai, Tolima, and de la Fragua, respectively. I exclude from these statements all extinct volcanoes, and all trachytic mountains which have no permanent connection with the interior of the earth. (Asie Centrale, t. ii. pp. 16-55, 69-77, and 341-356.) East of the volcano of Turfan, and of the fertile Oasis of Rami, rich in fine fruit, the chain of the Thian-schan gives place to the great elevated tract of Gobi, which follows a SW. and NE. direction. 8 |