210 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



Europe, - on the Continent, 1. On Islands, 20 



Asia and Oceania, 17. 137 



Africa, 2. <) 



America, 86. 28 



In addition to the above, Mount Erebus, on the south polar continent, is an active 

 volcano of immense size. The mass and elevation of volcanoes seem to regulate the 

 occurrence of eruptions, the smallest being j;he most active. Thus Stromboli, an inferior 

 elevation, is almost always flaring as the great lighthouse of nature in the Mediterranean. 

 Vesuvius, far less than Etna, is the most active of the two, while some of the enormous 

 Andean cones repose for centuries. 



Of existing volcanic action, the most sublime and imposing example perhaps to be found 

 in the world, is in the island of Hawaii, formerly called Owhyhee. The whole island 

 seems to be an immense hollow cone, having an area of 4000 square miles, and attaining 

 an elevation of 16,000 feet, the height of Mowna Roa. It forms a pyramidal chimney 

 over a vast incandescent mass burning beneath it, and also under some part of the bed of 

 the surrounding ocean, having numerous vents through which the furnace below commu 

 nicates with the atmosphere above. Lord Byron and a party of officers from the Blonde 

 frigate, with the Rev. Mr. Stewart, visited the crater of Kilauea, near the base of Mowna 

 Roa, and witnessed a scene, says the describer, more horribly sublime than any thing he 

 had ever imagined to exist even in the idler visions of unearthly things. Arrived at the 

 brink of the crater, they stood looking down into a fearful gulph, fifteen hundred feet in 

 depth, and upwards of two miles in circumference. The edge of the crater was so steep, 

 that it seemed as if by a single leap they could plunge into the lowest abyss. Its surface 

 had all the agitation of an ocean. Billow after billow tossed its monstrous bosom into the 

 air, and occasionally the waves from opposite directions met with such violence as to dash 

 the fiery spray in the concussion forty or fifty feet high. Such was the agonising struggle 

 of the action Avithin the appalling sounds of the conflicting elements, muttering and sigh 

 ing, groaning and blowing, that one of the party shrunk back exclaiming: " Call it weak 

 ness, or whatever you please, but I cannot look again ! " About fifty cones of various height, 

 active chimneys of volcanic fire, were counted in the abyss. Volumes of smoke and steam 

 were ascending from these vents, but as the evening closed, fire after fire appeared glim 

 mering through the vapour. Some of the cones were ejecting fragments of rock ; others, 

 ashes, lava, and boiling water ; streams of fire seemed to be running among the labouring 

 craters ; forming a scene which, in connexion with the roar of the elements bursting from 

 their prison, reminded the party, as one of them expressed it, of the lake that burneth with 

 fire and brimstone. To the bottom of the abyss it is well known that a Christian convert 

 descended, and plunged a stick into the fiery deluge ! an act of female heroism to dispel 

 the illusion of her countrymen, who were spectators at a distance, and who fancied thatPeli, 

 the god of the Kilauea fires, would punish with instant destruction any violation of his 

 sanctuary. 



One of the most tremendous volcanic eruptions ever recorded, was that which issued 

 from the Tomboro mountain in the island of Sumbawa, for an account of which we are 

 indebted to Sir Stamford Raffles. It began on the 5th of April, 1815, and continued 

 with some intermissions until the June following. The sound of the explosion was heard 

 at Ternate on the western coast of Gilolo, a distance of seven hundred and twenty geo 

 graphical miles : and in Sumatra, which is nine hundred and seventy. In some parts of 

 the island violent whirlwinds carried up men, horses, and cattle into the air ; the sea was 

 covered with the trunks of trees which had been torn up ; and the ashes from the moun 

 tain, wafted to Tara and Celebes, a distance of three hundred miles, caused a darkness in 

 the daytime more profound than had ever been known in the darkest night. To the west 



