THE EARTH. 8? 



many burning mountains ; they are also seen in 

 Japan, and the islands adjacent; and in Java 

 and Sumatra, as well as in other of the Philippine 

 Islands. In Africa, there is a cavern near Fez 

 which continually sends forth either smoke or 

 flames. In the Cape de Verde Islands, one of 

 them, called the Island del Fuego, continually 

 burns; and the Portuguese, who frequently at- 

 tempted a settlement there, have as often been 

 obliged to desist. The Peak of Teneriffe is, as 

 every body knows, a volcano that seldom desists 

 from eruptions. But of all parts of the earth, 

 America is the place where those dreadful irre- 

 gularities of nature are the most conspicuous. 

 Vesuvius, and JEtna itself, are but mere fire- 

 works in comparison to the burning mountains 

 of the Andes ; which, as they are the highest 

 mountains of the world, so also are they the 

 most formidable for their eruptions. The moun- 

 tain of Arequipa, in Peru, is one of the most ce- 

 lebrated ; Tarassa, and Malahallo, are very con- 

 siderable ; but that of Cotopaxi, in the province 

 of Quito, exceeds any thing we have hitherto 

 read or heard of. The mountain of Cotopaxi, as 

 described by Ulloa,* is more than three miles 

 perpendicular from the sea ; and it became a vol- 

 cano at the time of the Spaniards' first arrival in 

 that country. A new eruption of it happened in 

 the year 1743, having been some days preceded 

 by a continual roaring in its bowels. The sound 

 of one of these mountains is not, like that of the 



* Ulloa, vol. i. p, 442. 



