TRUE VOLCANOES. 



259 



tral America, twenty-nine volcanoes are numbered, whose 

 former or present varied activity may be stated with cer- 



trigonometrical measurement by Galindo, at 12,000 Spanish feet, 

 or, taking the vara cast. =0-43 of a toise, at 11,000 feet. (Bon- 

 plandia, Jahrgang 1856, No. 3.) 



El Reventado (about 9500 feet), with a deep crater, of which the 



southern margin has fallen in, and which was formerly filled with 



water. 

 The volcano Barba (more than 8119 feet), to the north of San Jose, 



the capital of Costa Rica ; with a crater which contains several 



small lakes. 

 Between the volcanoes Barba and Orosi there follows a series of 

 volcanoes which intersects the principal chain, running S.E. — N.W". 

 in Costa Eica and Nicaragua, almost in the opposite direction, east and 

 west. Upon such a fissure stand, farther to the eastward, Miravalles 

 and Tenorio (each of these volcanoes is about 4689 feet) ; in the cen- 

 tre, to the southeast of Orosi, the volcano Rincon, also called Rincon de 

 la Vieja* (Squier, vol. ii., p. 102), which exhibits small eruptions of 

 ashes every spring at the commencement of the rainy season ; and 

 farthest to the westward, near the little town of Alajuela, the volcano 

 Votos* (7513 feet), which abounds in sulphur. Dr. Oersted compares 

 this phenomenon of the direction of volcanic activity upon a trans- 

 verse fissure with the east and west direction, which I found in the 

 Mexican volcanoes from sea to sea. 



Orosi,* still active, in the most southern part of the state of Nica- 

 ragua (5222 feet) ; probably the Yolcan del Papagayo, on the chart of 

 the Deposito Hidrograjico. 



The two volcanoes Mandeira and Ometepec* (4157 and 5222 feet), 

 upon a small island in the western part of the Laguna de Nicaragua, 

 named by the Aztec inhabitants of the district after these two mount- 

 ains (ome tepetl signifies two mountains ; see Buschmann, Aztekische 

 Ortsnamen, p. 178 and 171). The insular volcano Ometepec, errone- 

 ously named Ometep by Juarros (Hist, de Guatemala, t. L, p. 51), is 

 still in activity. It is figured by Squier (vol. ii., p. 235). 



The extinct crater of the island Zapatera, but little elevated above 

 the sea-level. The period of its ancient eruptions is quite unknown. 



The volcano of Afomobacho, on the western shore of the Laguna de 

 Nicaragua, somewhat to the south of the citv of Granada. As this 

 city is situated between the volcanoes of Momobacho (the place is also 

 called Mombacho, Oviedo, Nicaragua, ed. Ternaux, p. 245) and Ma- 

 saya, the pilots indicate sometimes the one and sometimes the other 

 of these conical mountains by the indefinite name of the Volcano of 

 Granada. 



The volcano Massaya (Masaya), which has already been treated of 

 in detail (p. 258-261), was once a Stromboli, but has been extinct 

 since the great eruption of lava in 1670. According to the interesting 

 reports of Dr. Scherzer (Sitzungsberichte der Philos. Hist. Classe der 

 Alcad. der Wiss. zu Wien, bd. xx., s. 58), dense clouds of vapor were 

 again emitted in April, 1853, from a newly-opened crater. The vol- 

 cano of Massaya is situated between the two lakes of Nicaragua and 

 Managua, to the west of the city of Granada. Massaya is not synony- 



