ILLUSTRATIONS (22). MOUNT ATLAS. 113 



is still called by the Arabs Damn, a word that is almost 

 identical in its consonants with Dyris. Hornius,* on the 

 other hand, thinks that he recognises the term Dyris in the 

 word Ayadyrma, the name applied by the Guanches to the 



Peak of Teneriffe.f 



As our present geological knowledge of the mountainous 

 parts of North Africa, which, however, must be admitted to 

 be very limited, does not make us acquainted with any traces 

 of volcanic eruptions within historic times, it seems the more 

 remarkable that so many indications should be found in 

 the writings of the Ancients of a belief in the existence of 

 such phenomena in the Western Atlas and the contiguous 

 west coast of the continent. The streams of fire so often 

 mentioned in Hanno's Ship's Journal might indeed have been 

 tracks of burning grass, or beacon tires lighted by the wild 

 inhabitants of the coasts as a signal to warn each other of 

 threatening danger on the first appearance of hostile vessels. 

 The high summit of the " Chariot of the Gods," of which 

 Hanno speaks (the 6su>v uxnf^a), ma y a l so have had some 

 faint reference to the Peak of Teneriffe; but farther on he 

 describes a singular configuration of the land. He finds in 

 the gulf, near the Western Horn, a large island, in which there 

 is a salt lake, which again contains a smaller island. South of 

 the Bay of the Gorilla Apes the same conformation is re- 

 peated. Does he refer to coral structures, lagoon islands 

 (Atolls), and to volcanic crater lakes, in the middle of which a 

 conical mountain has been upheaved ? The Triton Lake was not 

 in the neighbourhood of the lesser Syrtis, but on the western 

 shores of the Atlantic ,\ The lake disappeared in an earth- 

 quake, which was attended with great fire-eruptions. Dio- 

 dorus§ says expressly irvpdg sK<pv-ii^aTa pe-yaKa. But the most 

 wonderful configuration is ascribed to the hollow Atlas, in a 

 passage hitherto but little noticed in one of the philosophical 



* De Originibus Americanorum, p. 195. 



f On the connexion of purely mythical ideas and geographical tra- 

 ditions, and on the manner in which the Titan Atlas gave occasion to 

 the image of a mountain beyond the Pillars of Hercules supporting the 

 heavens, see Letronne, Essai sur les Idees cosmographiqv.es qui se 

 rattachent au nom d' Atlas, in Ferussac's Bulletin universcl des 

 Sciences, Mars 1831, p. 10. 



t Asie centrale, t. i., p. 179.. 



§ Lib. iii., 53, 55. 



I 



