Miscellanies. 169 
ble light of the stars enabled us to perceive, on the commencement 
of the acclivity of the upper cone, a White space whose color was 
caused by the alteration of the rocks, and by saline efilorescences 
having a very styptic taste. In the midst of this space, at several 
points, we distinguished pale and scarcely luminous flames, which 
seemed to issue from the earth; they occupied the orifices of sev- 
eral irregular openings, which were from one to two yards in width, 
and were only the enlargements of a tortuous crevice. These 
flames were evidently produced by a gas disengaged from the cre- 
vice, and which did not find the oxygen necessary for its combus- 
tion till it reached the external air. The combustion took place 
almost exactly at the level of the surface of the ground. The flame 
rarely rose to the height of a yard; it produced a sound somewhat 
intermittent, pretty analogous to that of several lighted faggots, or 
rather that which is heard at the bottom of a blast-furnace when the © 
blowing apparatus is badly constructed. The gases produced by 
the combustion did not impede the breathing, and had a strong odor 
of sulphurous acid. Sulphuretted hydrogen was also perceptible, 
but I did not recognize the odor of muriatic acid. Every circum- 
stance, then, announced that the flame was supported by sulphuret- 
ted hydrogen, and afterwards, when the sun lighted up the moun- 
tain, a long bluish cloud was seen taking its rise from that particular 
point. 
In the interior of the’ predt crater I found several portions of 
snow, but from many other points of its angular bottom there issued 
hot vapors, having a whitish color, more or less dense, composed 
chiefly of watery vapor, but having nevertheless a strong odor of 
sulphurous and muriatic acids ; one or the other of these acids pre- 
dominated alternately. The surfaces across which the vapors were 
disengaged were in part covered by saline efflorescences, which were 
sometimes white, and sometimes colored of an orange-yellow tint 
by the chloruret of iron, or of a canary-yellow by particles of lava 
altered by the acid vapors. In some fissures I found white fibrous 
psum, mixed with altered pulverulent yellow lava in which some 
small nodules of sulphur were disseminated. 
-The above account of the observations of this distinguished geol- 
ogist is followed by a statement of his theory of the formation of 
the mountain. After alluding to the changes of form that have re- 
sulted from the frequent production of extensive longitudinal fissures 
by the earthquakes that accompany or precede an eruption of the 
Vou. XXXI.—No. 1. 22 
