Note 120 — Chapter IV · GEOGRAPHICAL DESCRIPTION OF MANCHURIA, MONGOLIA, ÍLÍ, AND TIBET.

The question of the existence of volcanoes in Central Asia, especially on the Kuldja frontier, has always been a matter of doubt and discussion among geologists and Russian explorers. The Governor of Semiretchinsk, General Kolpakofsky, was, in 1881, able to report the discovery of the perpetual fires in the Tien shan range of mountains. The mountain Bai shan was found twelve miles northeast of Kuldja, in a basin surrounded by the massive Ailak mountains; its fires are not volcanic, but proceed from burning coal. On the sides of the mountain there are caves emitting smoke and sulphurous gas. Mr. Schuyler, in his Turkistan, mentions that these perpetual fires in the mountains, referred to by Chinese historians, were considered by Severtzoff, a Russian, who explored the region, as being caused by the ignition of the seams of coal, or the carburetted hydrogen gas in the seams. The same author further mentions that Captain Tosnofskey, another Russian explorer, was told of a place in the neighborhood from which steam constantly rose, and that near this crevice there had existed, from ancient times, three pits, where persons afflicted with rheumatism or skin diseases were in the habit of bathing.