252 Sotne Account of the Island of Ttneriffe. 



Campagna Felice, as well as the plains of Catania, were not 

 created by the ash and pumice eruption of Vesuvius and ^tna. 

 The bed of soil is here very deep. 1 examined some ravines that 

 the rains had laid open to the depth of 30 or 40 feet : the strata 

 were indurated at the bottom, and resembled the tufa in the vi- 

 cinity of Naples, and all contained the substances mentioned 

 above. This tufaceous character changes as you ascend the hill 

 that separates Laguna from Santa Cruz ; the hill itself, and the 

 vhole neighbourhood of the latter city, is one continued stream 

 of lava, hardly at ail decomposed, with little or no vegetation ; 

 but here and there in the hollows some few etunted plants of 

 the aloe algarvensls, and the cytisus. 



Having given a general account of the island, I shall now at- 

 tCHipL to describe the country of the peak, which mountain I 

 ascended on the 16th of September ISIO. The road from Puerto 

 Orotava to the city of Orotava is a gradual and easy slope for 

 three or four miles, through a highly cultivated country. The 

 soil is composed of volcanic ash and earth, and to the eastward 

 ot the town of l\ierto di Orotava are the remains of a recent vol- 

 cano, the crater and cone being distinctly visible. Leaving the 

 town of Orotava, after a steep ascent of about an hour through a 

 deep ravine, wo quitted the cultivated part of the slope or valley 

 and entered into a forest of chesnuts; the trees are here of a 

 large size. This forest of chesnuts is mixed with the erica ar- 

 loren, or tree heath, which shrub rises to the height of 18 or 20 

 feet. Some of the stems are as thick as the arm of a man, joined 

 together in bunches or tufts like the conmion heath. Tbe form 

 of this forest is oblong, it covers the flank of those hills which I 

 have already denominated the central chain, from their summit 

 to half their elevation froip the plain. The soil here is deep, and 

 formed of decomposed lava, small ash, and pumice. 1 examined 

 several channels in the strata or ravines worn by the rains, and 

 there was no appearance of any other rock. Leaving this forest, 

 tlia track passes over a series of green hills which we traversed 

 in about two hours, and at last halted to water our mules at a 

 spot called El larranco del pi/to de la meruenda, where there is 

 a small spring of bad and brackish water issuing from a lava 

 rock. The ravine is of considerable depth. After the vegetable 

 earth, which is two or three feet deep, a layer of tufa succeeds, 

 which is followed by a lava of a greyish-blue colour, 30 or 40 

 feet in depth. It is compact, contains olivine, and the strata 

 lap over each other, but show no appearance of columnar for-" 

 rnation. The range of green hills extends a mile or two further, 

 the soil shallow'.ng by degrees, more lava and scoria showing 

 themselves on the surface, the ravines or channels, worn by the 

 rains, becoming more common, the trees and shrubs gradually 



dwindling 



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