GEOLOGY. 



617 



Homer it has served as a beacon to navigators approaching 

 the ^Eolian Islands. On the contrary, the volcanoes which 

 animate the crests of the Cordilleras, and which are six or 

 eight times as high, seem condemned to long intervals of 

 repose, and in many cases only break out from century to 

 century. 



231. Goenong Api, Banda Islands, in the Moluccas. 1 



The volcanoes which lord it over the frozen summits of 

 the Andes often produce phenomena equally striking and 

 unexpected. When they melt the snows which crown their 

 craters, their eruptions produce impetuous torrents, which, 

 precipitating themselves, bear with them smoking scoriae, 

 fragments of rock, and blocks of ice. 



1 The island of Goenong Api is one of the most active volcanoes in the Indian 

 Archipelago. It forms an immense cone 7880 feet high, and is covered with lux- 

 uriant vegetation except where this has been destroyed by recent eruptions of 

 lava. By the proximity of this volcano the Banda Islands are subject to frequent 

 and destructive eruptions and earthquakes. The strongest recorded were those 

 of 1598, 1615, 1632, 1691, 1711, 1798, and 1820; but the most fatal in their con- 

 sequences were those of 1629, 1683, 1686, 1743, and 1816. So terrible were the 

 ravages of the eruption and earthquake of 1691 that all the more wealthy inhab- 

 itants fled the islands, and the establishment was almost totally broken up. Tr. 



