244 Br Charles Baubeny on the 



the whole extensive catalogue of those* cited as having been 

 personally examined by myself, in various parts, both of the 

 Old and New World, scarcely one could be fixed upon which 

 does not present this phenomenon, excepting, indeed, a few 

 in the island of Ischia, the origin of which is manifestly no- 

 thing else than the rain water, which had collected in in- 

 ternal reservoirs at a small depth beneath the surface, and 

 had then become heated by the rock, still partaking of the 

 high temperature it had acquired by recent volcanic opera- 

 tions. 



And, withi respect to the last fact mentioned, it is one so 

 inexplicable by the mere access of water to an incandescent 

 body, already saturated with oxygen, such as lava, that the 

 opponents of the chemical theory have no other resource than 

 to deny its reality. 



" If inflammable gases were present," they say, *' they 

 would burn on coming into contact with the air ; and hence 

 flames would be commonly seen issuing from the orifices of 

 an active volcano. 



" But the appearances which have been taken for flames 

 turn out to be illusory, being due merely to the light radiated 

 from the red-hot stones ejected, and not derived from gaseous 

 matter in a state of combustion.'* 



Now, that flames should not be of ordinary occurrence in 

 volcanoes, may be explained without much difficulty. 



In the caverns and fissures through which the gases evolved 

 had to pass before they reached the circumference of the 

 earth, and escaped from the orifice of the volcano, they must 

 often come into contact, either with oxygen,' or with oxidized 

 bodies, from which they would be able to abstract the same 

 principle. In both these cases, the hydrogen would recombine 

 with oxygen, and return to the focus of the volcano, as water* 



But supposing oxygen gas to be absent, or not to exist in 

 sufficient quantity to unite with all the inflammable matter 

 evolved, the latter would, in most cases, be accompanied with 



* See, for those in the Old World, Report on Mineral Waters, Br. Associat. 

 Reports for 1836; for those in the New, my Sketch of the Geology of N. America. 



