M. de Humboldt on the Folcanos of Guatemala. 121 



four leagues more to the north. On the eastern chasm are 

 the volcanos of Pacaya, the Water-volcano, the two volcanos 

 of Fuego, and the volcano of Acatenango ; on the western, 

 nearer the lake of Atitlan, are the volcanos of Tollman, Atit- 

 lan, and Sunil, with several isolated mountains, the names of 

 which are unknown to me. 



The Water-volcano {Volcan deAgua) is, in comparison with 

 the twenty-one partly extinguished and partly still burning 

 volcanos of Central America, one of the highest and most ce- 

 lebrated. It lies twenty miles east of the great Laguna de 

 Atitlan, between Antigua Guatemala and the populous villages 

 of Mixco Amatitan and San Christobal. As the altitude 

 of not a single mountain of the Guatemalan Andes has been 

 measured, I draw my opinion of its height merely from the 

 circumstance that the mountain often remains covered for 

 many months together with rime, with ice, and perhaps even 

 with snow. In so southern a latitude the height cannot be 

 less than 11,000, nor above 15,000 English feet. Mountains 

 which exceed the latter ai'e real Nevados, that is, covered with 

 eternal snow. Capt. Basil Hall estimates the two volcanos of 

 Guatemala at 14,331 and 14,562 feet, an admeasurement taken 

 at the distance of forty leagues, and which cannot therefore 

 be much relied on. Pater Remesal, {Hist, de la Provincia de 

 San Vincente, liv. iv. cap. 5.) who plays with numbers in the 

 old-fashioned way, asserts, that in 1615 the Water-volcano, 

 as it is called, was still three leagues [leguas) high, although 

 it lost its crown {coronilla), which was one league high, by the 

 eruption of the 11th of September 1541, when Almolonga, or 

 Ciudad Vieja, was destroyed ! The geognostic relations of 

 this water-eruption are wholly unknown. Juarros relates, 

 that neither burnt stones nor any traces of volcanic eruptions 

 were discoverable in the declivity of the mountain ; perhaps 

 however ashes and lava are covered by the vegetation ; per- 

 haps not merely subterranean caverns have been filled for 

 centuries by rain-water which has flowed into them, but a 

 crater-lake also may have existed in the summit itself 



In the province of Quito, I have been told, that the volcano 

 of Imbabaru, which has been extinguished longest, near the 

 Villa de Ibarra, from time to time (probably after earthquakes) 

 casts forth water, slime, and fishes; thus much, however, is 

 certain, that the Volcano de Agua, which lies between the 

 Volcano de Pacaya and the Volcano de Fuego, has the form 

 of a blunted cone. Two-thirds of the slopes of this great 

 mountain-root, which is said to be eighteen leagues in diame- 

 ter, are cultivated as a garden ; further upwards arise majestic 

 woods, and on the top there still exists an elliptical cavern, 



New Series. Vol. 2. No. 8. z/?/^'. 1827. R the 



