628 THE UNIVERSE. 



This strange phenomenon is due to a communication be- 

 ing formed between a crater and a subterranean lake con- 

 cealed in the side of the mountain. This fact also accounts 

 for the enormous quantity of fish mixed with the water and 

 mud which Cotopaxi and other volcanoes of America some- 

 times eject. And this explanation is so much the more 

 plausible because the species which is ejected at such times 

 is the only fish which lives in the most elevated water- 

 courses of the Cordilleras, at a height of 9000 feet. This 

 fish belongs to the family SiluridaB, and naturalists have re- 

 cently given it the name of Pimelodus Cyclopum (Pimelode 

 of the Cyclopes), in recognition of the singular changes to 

 which it is liable in the course of existence. 



These eruptions containing fish are not rare. Humboldt 

 relates that in one of them Cotopaxi ejected such a quan- 

 tity of Pimelodes on the estate of the Marquis of Selvalegre 

 that they poisoned the air all round. Towards the close 

 of the last century the town of Iburra was ravaged by a 

 malignant fever, which was attributed to the miasmata 

 arising from an enormous mass of these fishes vomited by 

 a neio;hborin<j; volcano. 



In a short time flames issued from the sea, ri>in2; sometimes to the height of fif- 

 teen feet. This continued till the 14th February, when the eruptions became 

 more violent and the sea more troubled. Gas forced its way upwards from the 

 bottom with terrific noise, flames arose in several places, and a dense column of 

 white smoke mounted steadily to an immense height. A new island appeared 

 next morning, which, by the 28th, had reached a height of thirty feet, with a 

 circumference of 300 yards at the sea-level. It was composed of a heap of loose 

 clinker and lava. During this time a new volcano had arisen on the island of 

 Neo Kaimeni (itself produced by volcanic action in 1707), and part of that island 

 had sunk below the sea. The new island lay a little to the southwest of Neo 

 Kaimeni, but by its gradual increase it became united with that island, and now 

 forms its southwestern extremity. Tr.] 



