618 THE UNIVERSE. 



At a great distance most volcanoes look just like pointed 

 cones vomiting flames or vapors by a very narrow fissure. 

 But when patience and courage have carried us to the rug- 

 ged crests of their burning mouths, or when we have pene- 

 trated their sides, we are astonished at the scenes of grand- 

 eur which present themselves to our eyes in the midst of 

 these frightful and dangerous abysses, where the heat and 

 deleterious gases threaten to suffocate the traveller. I had 

 felt astonished at the dimensions of the ancient craters of 

 France and Italy, the one filled up with lakes, the other 

 transformed into forests. I experienced the same feeling 

 in exploring Vesuvius and Etna ; but nothing in their fiery 

 mouths can be compared with what is found in America. 

 The immense crater of Orizaba, according to Baron Miiller, 

 is not less than 20,000 feet in circumference. Persons 

 standing on the opposite sides of it are almost invisible to 

 each other. 



On another mountain in Mexico we find, again, a crater 

 of very remarkable dimensions, that of Popocatepetl. Placed 

 on the summit of a crest in the Cordilleras, from whence 

 can be seen at the same time the two seas which bathe 

 America, and in the distance Mexico encircled by its fairy 

 lake, this crater, which is nearly circular, is, according to M. 

 Boscovitz, 5000 feet in its longest diameter. The gullet of 

 this giant has never been disturbed since the discovery of 

 the New World ; but in former times it must have thrown 

 out flames abundantly, as thick beds of its ashes are found 

 for more than twenty leagues round about. Where it has 

 been possible for them to accumulate, their mass sometimes 

 displays a depth of more than fifty metres (about 164 feet). 



