a large lake of salt water in Asia, bounded by the province of Astracan on the north, and by part of Persia on the south, east, and west. It is 646 miles in length, 265 in breadth, and 2350 in circumference, including gulfs and bogs. This sea embraces between Astracan and Astrabad an incredible number of small islands. Its bottom is mud, but sometimes mixed with shells. At the distance of some German miles from land it is 500 fathoms deep; but on approaching the shore it is everywhere so shallow, that the smallest vessels, if loaded, are obliged to remain at a distance.

When we consider that the Caspian is enclosed on all sides by land, and that its banks are in the neighbourhood of very high mountains, we easily see why the navigation in it should be perfectly different from that in every other sea. There are certain winds that domineer over it with such absolute sway, that vessels are often deprived of every resource; and in the whole extent of it there is not a port that can truly be called safe. The north, north-east, and east winds, blow most frequently, and occasion the most violent tempests. Along the eastern shore the east winds prevail; for which reason vessels bound from Persia to Astracan always direct their course along this shore.

The surface of the Caspian sea is found to be 324 feet lower than the ocean. Although its extent is immense, the variety of its productions is exceedingly small. This undoubtedly proceeds from its want of communication with the ocean, which cannot impart to it any portion of its inexhaustible stores. But the animals which this lake nourishes multiply to such a degree, that the Russians, who alone are in condition to make them turn to account, justly consider them as a never-failing source of profit and wealth. It will be understood that we speak of the fish of the Caspian, and of its fisheries, which make the sole occupation and principal trade of the people inhabiting the banks of the Wolga and of the Jaik. This business is distinguished into the great and lesser fisheries. The fish comprehended under the first division, such as the sturgeon and others, abound in all parts of the Caspian, as well as in the rivers that communicate with it, and which they ascend at spawning time. The small fishes, such as the salmon and many others, observe the general law of quitting the salt waters for the fresh; nor is there an instance of one of them remaining constantly in the sea.

Seals are the only quadrupeds that inhabit the Caspian; but they are there in such numbers as to afford the means of subsistence to many people in that country as well as in Greenland. The varieties of the species are numerous, diversified however only by the colour. Some are quite black, others quite white; there are some whitish, some yellowish, some of a mouse colour, and some streaked like a tiger. They crawl by means of their fore feet upon the islands, where they become the prey of the fishermen, who kill them. them with long clubs. As soon as one is dispatched, he is succeeded by several who come to the assistance of their unhappy companion, but come only to share his fate. They are exceedingly tenacious of life, and endure more than thirty hard blows before they die. They will even live for several days after having received many mortal wounds. They are most terrified by fire and smoke; and as soon as they perceive them, retreat with the utmost expedition to the sea. These animals grow so very fat, that they look rather like oil bags than animals. At Astracan is made a sort of gray soap with their fat mixed with pot-ashes, which is much valued for its property of cleansing and taking grease from woollen stuffs. The greatest numbers of them are killed in spring and autumn. Many small vessels go from Astracan merely to catch seals.

If the Caspian has few quadrupeds, it has in proportion still fewer of those natural productions which are looked upon as proper only to the sea. There have never been found in it any zoophytes, nor any animal of the order of mollusca. The same may almost be said of shells; the only ones found being three or four species of cockle, the common muscle, some species of snails, and one or two others.

But to compensate this sterility, it abounds in birds of different kinds. Of those that frequent the shores, there are many species of the goose and duck kind, of the stork and heron, and many others of the water tribe. Of birds properly aquatic, it contains the grebe, the crested diver, the pelican, the cormorant, and almost every species of gull. Crows are so fond of fish, that they haunt the shores of the Caspian in prodigious multitudes.

The waters of this lake are very impure, the great number of rivers that run into it, and the nature of its bottom, affecting it greatly. It is true, that in general the waters are salt: but though the whole western shore extends from the 46th to the 35th degree of north latitude; and though one might conclude from analogy that these waters would contain a great deal of salt, yet experiments prove the contrary; and it is certain, that the saltness of this sea is diminished by the north, north-east, and north-west winds; although we may with equal reason conclude, that it owes its saltness to the mines of salt which lie along its two banks, and which are either already known, or will be known to posterity. The depth of these waters also diminishes gradually as you approach the shores, and their saltness in the same way grows less in proportion to their proximity to the land, the north winds not unfrequently causing the rivers to discharge into it vast quantities of troubled water impregnated with clay. These variations which the sea is exposed to are more or less considerable, according to the nature of the winds; they affect the colour of the river waters to a certain distance from the shore, till these mixing with those of the sea, which then resume the ascendancy, the fine green colour appears, which is natural to the ocean, and to all those bodies of water that communicate with it.

It is well known, that, besides its salt taste, all sea water has a sensible bitterness, which must be attributed not only to the salt itself, but to the mixture of different substances that unite with it, particularly to different sorts of alum, the ordinary effect of different combinations of acids. Besides this, the waters of the Caspian have another taste, bitter too, but quite distinct, which affects the tongue with an impression similar to that made by the bile of animals; a property which is peculiar to this sea, though not equally sensible at all seasons. When the north and north-west winds have raged for a considerable time, this bitter taste is sensibly felt; but when the wind has been south, very imperfectly. We shall endeavour to account for this phenomenon.

The Caspian is surrounded on its western side by the mountains of Caucasus, which extend from Derbent to the Black sea. These mountains make a curve near Astracan, and directing their course towards the eastern shore of the Caspian, lose themselves near the mouth of the Jaik, where they become secondary mountains, being disposed in strata. As Caucasus is an inexhaustible magazine of combustible substances, it consequently lodges an astonishing quantity of metals in its bowels. Accordingly, along the foot of this immense chain of mountains, we sometimes meet with warm springs; sometimes springs of naphtha of different quality; sometimes we find native sulphur, mines of vitriol, or lakes heated by internal fires. Now the foot of Mount Caucasus forming the immediate western shore of the Caspian sea, it is very easy to imagine that a great quantity of the constituent parts of the former must be communicated to the latter: but it is chiefly to the naphtha, which abounds so much in the countries which surround this sea, that we must attribute the true cause of the bitterness peculiar to its waters; for it is certain that this bitumen flows from the mountains, sometimes in all its purity, and sometimes mixed with other substances which it acquires in its passage through subterranean channels, from the most interior parts of these mountains to the sea, where it falls to the bottom by its specific gravity. It is certain, too, that the north and north-west winds detach the greatest quantities of this naphtha; whence it is evident that the bitter taste must be most sensible when these winds prevail. We may also comprehend why this taste is not so strong at the surface or in the neighbourhood of the shore, the waters there being less impregnated with salt, and the naphtha, which is united with the water by the salt, being then either carried to a distance by the winds, or precipitated to the bottom.

But it is not a bitter taste alone that the naphtha communicates to the waters of the Caspian: these waters were analysed by M. Gmelin, and found to contain, besides the common sea salt, a considerable proportion of Glauber salt, intimately united with the former, and which is evidently a production of the naphtha.

As the waters of the Caspian have no outlet, it has been supposed that they are discharged by subterranean canals; but this is shewn to be incredible, by the lower level of this sea. The two great deserts which extend from it to the east and west are chiefly composed of a saline earth, in which the salt is formed by efflorescence into regular crystals; for which reason salt showers and dews are exceedingly common in that neighbourhood. The salt of the marshes at Astracan, and that found in efflorescence in the deserts, is by no means pure sea salt, but much de- In many places indeed it is found with crystals of a lozenge shape, which is peculiar to it, without any eucalitical appearance, the form peculiar to crystals of sea salt.

A great deal has been written on the successive augmentation and decrease of the Caspian sea, but with little truth. There is indeed to be perceived in it a certain rise and fall of its waters; in which, however, no observation has ever discovered any regularity.

Many suppose (and there are strong presumptions in favour of the supposition), that the shores of the Caspian were much more extensive in ancient times than they are at present, and that it once communicated with the Black sea. It is probable, too, that the level of this last sea was once much higher than it is at present. If then it be allowed, that the waters of the Black sea, before it procured an exit by the straits of Constantinople, rose several fathoms above their present level, which from many concurring circumstances may easily be admitted, it will follow, that all the plains of the Crimea, of the Kuman, of the Wolga, and of the Jaik, and those of Great Tartary beyond the lake of Aral, in ancient times formed but one sea, which embraced the northern extremity of Caucasus by a narrow strait of little depth; the vestiges of which are still obvious in the river Mantych.