Peb. 1, 1870.1 



HARDWICKE'S SCIEN C E-GOSSIP. 



25 



THE VOLCANO-FISH. 



By the Rev. W. W. SPICER, M.A. 



jRGES is the name given 

 to a genus of fishes be- 

 longing to the family 

 of the iSih/roids, nearly 

 related to Pimelodes 

 of Lacepede, but se- 

 parated on account of 

 the structure of the teeth. Of 

 this genus but two species are 

 known, — one found in the fresh 

 waters of the Mission of Santa 

 Anna, in Upper Peru, where it 

 lives the ordinary piscine life 

 under the name of Sabalo ; the 

 other, known as Pregnadilla, is 

 the subject of the present 

 notice. 



Iu the year 1S03, A. von 

 Humboldt was fortunate 

 enough to witness an eruption of Monte Cotopaxi, 

 a well-known peak in the Northern Andes ; during 

 which, among other products, a large quantity 

 of fish was ejected. The inquiries immediately 

 instituted, and the investigations of more recent 

 travellers, have brought to light the astounding 

 fact, that from time to time, though at irregular 

 periods, fishes are cast up from the interior of the 

 mountain during volcanic eruptions. This phe- 

 nomenon is not confined to Cotopaxi ; it has been 

 observed also in other centres of volcanic action— 

 to wit, Tungurahua, Sungay, Imbaburu, Cargueirago, 

 &c, all of them in the same range. Prom the 

 craters of these volcanoes, or from fissures in their 

 sides, it is an ascertained fact that fish are vomited 

 forth at an height of some 16,000 feet above the 

 level of the sea, and about half that height above 

 the surrounding plains. The animals all belong to 

 a single species, the Arges Cyclopum, as it has been 

 well named. Nor is it a mere chance fish or two 

 that finds its way to the outer world through this 

 No. 62. 



strange opening. They are ejected in such count- 

 less shoals that, on more than one occasion, the 

 fetid exhalations proceeding from their putrid 

 bodies have spread disease and death over the 

 neighbouring regions. Such was the case in 1691, 

 when the volcano of Imbaburu vomited myriads of 

 these fish over the town of Ibara and its environs : 

 on this occasion pestilential fevers desolated the 

 neighbourhood. The same occurred when the sum- 

 mit of the volcano of Cargueirago fell in (June 10, 

 1698), and millions of Pregnadillas were thrown out 

 of the sides of the mountain, mingled with mud and 

 clay. At a later period the lands of a certain Mar- 

 quis de Salvalegoe were completely covered with 

 these fish, the infectious odour from whose decaying 

 bodies poisoned the surrounding country. 



As far as the external world is concerned, Arges 

 Cyclopum is known to exist in some lakes on the 

 sides of these mountains 8,000 to 10,000 feet above 

 the sea-level. It is presumable that these lakes 

 communicate with reservoirs in the interior, where 

 the Pregnadillas are generated, and thus find their 

 way through the crater. But this is mere con- 

 jecture. Nor, after all, does it help much towards 

 removing the difficulties by which the phenomenon 

 is surrounded. If these supposed lakes do exist in 

 the interior of the mountain, how strange must be 

 their situation, which allows of fish living in them 

 at an ordinary temperature, and yet places these 

 same fish exactly " in the line of fire " when the 

 contents of this huge earth-stomach are discharged 

 by the crater's mouth ! 



If the internal lakes do not exist, whence come 

 the myriads of fish which are ever and anon ejected ? 



Not the least curious part of the affair is, that 

 though some of the fish reach terra firma in a half- 

 boiled condition, most of them are perfectly raw, 

 and not a few are even alive, in spite of the fiery 

 ordeal through which they have had to pass.. 



Havre. 



