LECTURE I. 



ABOUT VOLCANOS AND EARTHQUAKES. 



PURPOSE in this Lecture to say something 

 about volcanos and earthquakes. It is a 

 subject I have thought a good deal about, 

 and seen a little of, for though I have 

 never been so fortunate as to have seen a volcano 

 in eruption, or to have been shaken out of my bed 

 by an earthquake, still I have climbed the cones of 

 Vesuvius and Etna, hammer in hand and barometer on 

 back, and have wandered over and geologized among, 

 I believe, nearly all the principal scenes of extinct vol- 

 canic activity in Europe, those of Spain excepted. 



(2.) Every one knows that a volcano is a mountain 

 that vomits out fire, and smoke, and cinders, and melted 

 lava, and sulphur, and steam, and gases, and all kinds 

 of horrible things ; nay, even sometimes mud, and boil- 

 ing water, and fishes ; and everybody has heard or read 

 of the earth opening, and swallowing up man and beast, 



