284 COSMOS. 



can volcanoes, that of Guatemala (Central America) is the 

 only one exceeded in mean elevation by the Javanese group. 

 Although in the vicinity of Old Guatemala the Volcan del 

 Fuego attains a height of 13,109 feet (according to the cal- 

 culation and reduction of PoggendorfF), and therefore 874 

 feet more than Gunung Semeru, the remainder of the Cen- 

 tral American series of volcanoes only varies between five 

 and seven thousand feet, and not, as in Java, between seven 

 and ten thousand feet. The highest volcano of Asia is not, 

 however, to be sought in the Asiatic Islands (the Archipel- 

 ago of the Sunda Islands), but upon the continent ; for upon 

 the peninsula of Kamtschatka the volcano Kljutschewsk 

 rises to 15,763 feet, or nearly to the height of the Kucu- 

 Pichincha, in the Cordilleras of Quito. 



The principal axis* of the closely-approximated series of 

 the Javanese volcanoes (more than 45 in number) has a di- 

 rection W.N.W. E.S.E. (exactly W. 12 N.), and there- 

 fore principally parallel to the series of volcanoes of the 

 eastern part of Sumatra, but not to the longitudinal axis of 

 the island of Java. This general direction of the chain of 

 volcanoes by no means excludes the phenomenon to which 

 attention has very recently been directed in the great chain 

 of the Himalaya, that three or four individual high summits 

 are so arranged together that the small axis of these partial 

 series form an oblique angle with the primary axis of the 

 chain. This phenomenon of fissure, which has been ob- 

 served and partially describedf by Hodgson, Joseph Hooker, 

 and Strachey, is of great interest. The small axes of the 

 subsidiary fissures meet the great axis, sometimes almost at 

 a right angle, and even in volcanic chains the actual maxi- 

 ma of elevation are often situated at some distance from the 

 major axis. As in most linear volcanoes, no definite pro- 

 portion is observed in Java between the elevation and the 

 size of the crater at the summit. The two largest craters 

 are those of Gunung Tengger and Gunung Kaon. The for- 

 mer of these is a mountain of the third class, only 8704 feet 

 in height. Its circular crater is, however, more than 21,315 

 feet, and therefore nearly four geographical miles in diame- 

 ter. The flat bottom of the crater is a sea of sand, the sur- 



* Junghuhn, Java, bd. i., s. 80. 



f See Joseph Hooker, Sketch-Map of Sikhim, 1850, and in hifl 

 Himalayan Journals, vol. i., 1854, JVfap of part of Bengal ; and also 

 Strachey, Map of }Vest-Nari, in his Physical Geography of Western 

 Tibet, 1853. 



