If there was really a northern as well as a southern Ecbatana, and if
the account of Herodotus, which cannot possibly apply to the southern
capital, may be regarded as truly describing the great city of the
north, we may with much probability fix the site of the northern town
at the modern Takht-i-Suleiman, in the upper valley of the Saruk, a
tributary of the Jaghetu. [PLATE I., Fig. 3.] Here alone in northern
Media are there important ruins occupying such a position as that which
Herodotus describes. Near the head of a valley in which runs the main
branch of the Saruk, at the edge of the hills which skirt it to the
north, there stands a conical mound projecting into the vale and rising
above its surface to the height of 150 feet. The geological formation of
the mound is curious in the extreme. It seems to owe its origin entirely
to a small lake, the waters of which are so strongly impregnated with
calcareous matter that wherever they overflow they rapidly form a
deposit which is as hard and firm as natural rock. If the lake was
originally on a level with the valley, it would soon have formed
incrustations round its edge, which every casual or permanent overflow
would have tended to raise; and thus, in the course of ages, the entire
hill may have been formed by a mere accumulation of petrefactions. The
formation would progress more or less rapidly according to the tendency
of the lake to overflow its bounds; which tendency must have been strong
until the water reached its present natural level--the level, probably,
of some other sheet of water in the hills, with which it is connected
by an underground siphon. The lake, which is of an irregular shape,
is about 300 paces in circumference. Its water, notwithstanding the
quantity of mineral matter held in solution, is exquisitely clear, and
not unpleasing to the taste. Formerly it was believed by the natives to
be unfathomable; but experiments made in 1837 showed the depth to be no
more than 156 feet.