O44 THE BEAUTIES OF NATURE CHAP. 
they are, volcanoes must yet be regarded as 
due mainly to local and superficial causes. 
A glance at the map shows that volcanoes 
are almost always situated on, or near, the sea 
coast. From the interior of continents they 
are entirely wanting. The number of active 
volcanoes in the Andes, contrasted with their 
absence in the Alps and Ourals, the Hima- 
layas, and Central Asian chains, is very strik- 
ing. Indeed, the Pacific Ocean is encircled, 
as Ritter has pointed out, by a ring of fire. 
Beginning with New Zealand, we have the 
Volcanoes of Tongariro, Whakaii, etc.; thence 
the circle passes through the Fiji Islands, Sol- 
omon Islands, New Guinea, Timor, Flores, 
Sumbava, Lombock, Java, Sumatra, the Philip- 
pines, Japan, the Aleutian Islands, along the 
Rocky Mountains, Mexico, Peru, and Chili, to 
Tierra del Fuego, and, in the far south, to the 
two great Volcanoes of Erebus and Terror on 
Victoria Land. | 
We know that the contraction of the 
Earth’s surface with the strains and fractures, 
the compression and folds, which must inevi- 
tably result, is still in operation, and must 
