86 



CANARY ISLANDS. 



hills, having extinct craters ; and in the Valley of Orotava 

 there are two considerable hills which rise in the form of 

 bells. One is called by the natives La Montafiita de la 

 Villa, and the other La Montafiita del Frayle, the former 

 being elevated about 800 feet above the ocean, and the 

 latter about 1,000 feet. Humboldt advanced an opinion 

 that these paps owe their origin to the lateral eruptions of 

 the great volcano. They have already emitted lavas, and 

 according to the tradition of the Guanches, the eruption 

 of La Montafiita de la Villa took place in 1430. The 

 craters of both of these hills are still visible, and some por- 

 tions of their black, scoriaceous sides are yet unproductive 

 of vegetation. 



The following table exhibits the names of the principal 

 points of TenerifTe, with their approximate heights above 

 the level of the ocean, and the temperature of the air and 

 of boiling-hot water, by Fahrenheit's scale. 



The island of Teneriffe is particularly remarkable for 

 the infinite number of caverns which it contains. They 

 are found in almost every declivity that the island affords, 

 and many of them are of surprising extent. In the vicinity 

 of Ycod there is one which has been penetrated more than a 

 quarter of a mile without reaching its extremity ; and 

 there is another in the vicinity of Santa Cruz, in which 

 numbers of people have been lost for their temerity in 

 going in too far ; consequently its mouth has been closed 

 by a wall. Many of these caverns on the more elevated 

 portions of the mountains serve as reservoirs for ice and 

 snow, and indeed they form the finest ice-houses in the 

 world, preserving it during the hottest summers. 



The investigation of caverns has as much relation to 

 the geologist as it has to the antiquary, for it has been as- 



