240 THE WORLD, 



This is the highest mountain in Mexico, and is continualfy burn- 

 ing. The two others lie on the western side of Mexico, and are 



called Jorullo and Colirna, the latter being 9000 feet in height. 

 We shall have occasion to speak of Jorullo and its eruptions 

 hereafter. It is somewhat remarkable that these five volcanoes 

 now active, are connected by a chain of intermediate ones, which 

 undoubtedly have been so at some remote period, and that if the 

 line of volcanic vents be prolonged in a westerly direction, it will 

 pass through a group of volcanic islands, called the isles of Rev- 

 illagigedo. Proceeding north of Mexico, another chain of moun- 

 tains running parallel with the Rocky Mountain chain, com- 

 mencing in the peninsula of California, runs as far north as the 

 50th deg. of north latitude, where it ends near the Rocky Moun- 

 tains. In the peninsula of California there are three, or accord- 

 ing to some accounts, five active volcanoes. In the Rocky 

 Mountain chain from Mexico north, no active volcano occurs, 

 but the whole country, says Mr. Parker, " from the Rocky Moun- 

 tains on the east and Pacific Ocean on the west, and from Queen 

 Charlotte's Island on the north to California on the south, presents 

 one vast scene of igneous or volcanic action. Internal fires ap- 

 pear to have reduced almost all the regular rock formations to a 

 state of fusion, and then, through fissures and chasms of the 

 earth, to have forced the substances which constitute the present 

 volcanic form. Such has been the intensity aud extent of this 



