VIII.] SEVELITCH. 1G9 



earthquake was experienced at Xischni Kamschatka on the 23cl of 

 the same month. 



In 1762 and 1767 outbursts again occurred, though of very much 

 less severity, but subsequent to that time no accounts of other 

 eruptions have, as far as I am aware, been published, with the 

 exception of that of Professor Adolph Erman, who, in 1829, found 

 the peak " in picturesque and sublime activity, and approached the 

 burning lava, which poured forth a continuous stream," till he 

 reached the height of 8000 feet above the sea.-^ 



Upon the northern side of the Kamschatka Eiver, 59 miles 

 N.E. by N. of Kluchefskaya, rises the irregular mass of Sevelitch, 

 of which w^e had hitherto seen but little. Its height is probably 

 between ten and eleven thousand feet, but we were not able to take 

 any measurements to correct this estimate. It is highest and most 

 conical at its eastern side, and at the time of our visit was sending 

 forth considerable volumes of smoke, which appeared to come from 

 a crater low down on the south-west aspect, but owing to the 

 extreme irregularity of the mountain, it was difficult to ascertain its 

 exact position. Nothing indeed can be more striking than the 

 difference between this volcano and Kluchi. The latter, with its 

 wonderful steepness of slope and its unbrokenly conical shape, is 

 probably one of tlie best instances that could be given of a 

 mountain that owes its entire height and form to the slow piling 

 up of the ashes and lava ejected from its crater. But in Sevelitch 

 it is evident that the method of formation has been very dissimilar, 

 and not of gradual occvirrence, excepting as regards the secondary 

 craters that have formed on the original mass. Hr. Erman, who 

 passed several days on the mountain and the plains below, regarded 

 it as having been forced from beneath the surface at a single 

 eruption, since its bulk was composed of crystalline rock "re- 

 sembling lava as little as the granitic rocks of the Alps." It would 

 seem as if some giant power had upheaved the thin crust of the 



^ "Journal Eoy. Geogr. Soc," vol. ix. p. 509. In the map accompanying this 

 letter, Uskovska is placed some miles to the south of its real position. 



