[footnote] *Abel Remusat, 'Lettre a M. Cordier', in the 'Annales de
Chimie', t. v., p. 137.
Pe-schan is also fully 1360 miles distant from the Caspian Sea,* and 172 and
218 miles from the seas of Issikul and Balkasch.
[footnote] *Humboldt, 'Asie Centrale', t. ii., p. 30-33, 38-52, 70-80, and
426-428. The existence of active volcanoes in Kordofan, 540 miles from the
Red Sea, has been recently contradicted by Ruppell, 'Reisen in Nubien',
1829, s. 151.
It is a fact worthy of notice, that among the four great parallel mountain
chains which traverse the Asiatic continent from east to west, the Altai,
the Thianschan, the Kuen-lun, and the Himalaya, it is not the latter chain,
which is nearest to Kuen-lun, at the distance of 1600 and 720 miles from the
sea, which have fire-emitting mountains like Aetna and Vesuvius, and
generate ammonia like the volcano of Guatimala. Chinese writers undoubtedly
speak of lava streams when they describe the emissions of smoke and flame,
which, issuing from Pe-schan, devastated a space measuring ten li* in the
first and seventh centuries of our era.
[footnote] *[A 'li' is a Chinese measurement, equal to about one thirtieth
of a mile.] -- Tr.
Burning masses of stone flowed, according to their description "like thin
melted fat.
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