'A second journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, between the years 1810 and 1816. With a journal of the voyage by the Brazils and Bombay to the Persian Gulf. Together with an account of the proceedings of His Majesty's embassy under Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart. K.L.S. With two maps, and engravings from the designs of the author.' [‎285] (336/516)

PETRIFACTIONS.
285
rather than omit all description of a spot, which perhaps no Europeans
but ourselves have had the opportunity of examining, and on which,
therefore, we are bound (in justice to those opportunities) not to with
hold the information which we obtained ; I will venture to give the fol
lowing notes of our visit, relying upon the candour and the science of
my reader to fill up my imperfect outline.
On approaching the spot, the ground has a hollow sound, with a
particularly dreary and calcined appearance, and when upon it, a strong
mineial smell arises from the ponds. The process of petrifaction is
to be traced from its first beginning to its termination. In one part,
the water is clear, in a second, it appears thicker and stagnant, in
a thud, cpute black, and in its last stage, is white like a hoar frost.
Indeed, a petrified pond looks like frozen water, and before the oper
ation is quite finished, a stone slightly thrown upon it breaks the outer
coating, and causes the black water underneath to exude. Where the
operation is complete, a stone makes no impression, and a man may
walk upon it without wetting his shoes. Whenever the petrifaction has
been hewn into, the curious progress of the concretion is clearly seen,
and shews itself like sheets of rough paper placed one over the other
in accumulated layers. Such is the constant tendency of this water
to become stone, that where it exudes from the ground in bubbles, the
petrifaction assumes a globular shape, as if the bubbles of a spring, by
a stroke of magic, had been arrested in their play, and metamorphosed
into marble. These stony bubbles which form the most curious speci
mens of this extraordinary quarry, frequently contain with them portions
of the earth through which the water has oozed.
The substance thus produced is brittle, transparent, and sometimes
most richly streaked with green, red, and copper-coloured veins. It
admits of being cut into immense slabs, and takes a good polish. We
did not remark that any plant except rushes grew in the water. The
shortest and best definition that can be given of the ponds, is that
which Quintus Curtius gives of the Lake Ascanius— Aqua sponte con-
crescens. *
* Lib. xi. c. 12.