TRUE VOLCANOES. 269 



proximated of them, as if they had broken out upon one 

 and the same fissure only 64 miles in length, are the eight 

 volcanoes, situated between the Laguna de Managua and 

 the Bay of Fonseca, between the volcano of Momotombo 

 and that of Conseguina, the subterranean noise of which 

 was heard in Jamaica and on the highlands of Bogota in 

 the year 1835 like the fire of artillery. In Central America 

 and the whole southern part of the new continent, and 

 generally from the Chonos Archipelago in Chili to the most 

 northern volcanoes of Mount Edgecombe on the small island 

 near Sitka, 63 and Mount Elias on Prince William's Sound, for 

 a length of 6400 geog. miles, the volcanic fissures have every- 

 where broken out in the western part, or that nearest to the 

 Pacific Ocean. Where the line of the Central American vol- 

 canoes enters with the volcano of Conchagua into the state 

 of San Salvador, in the latitude of 13^ (to the north of 

 the Bay of Fonseca) the direction of the volcanoes changes 

 at once with that of the west coast. The series of the 

 former then strikes E.S.E. W.N.W. ; indeed, where the 

 burning mountains are again so closely approximated that 

 five, still more or less active, are counted in the sliort dis- 

 tance of 120 miles, the direction is nearly E. W. This 

 deviation corresponds with a great dilatation of the conti- 

 nent towards the east in the peninsula of Honduras, where 

 the coast tends also suddenly, exactly east and west, from 

 Cape Gracias a Dios to the Gulf of Amatique for 300 miles, 

 after it had been previously running from north to south 

 for the same distance. In the group of elevated volcanoes 

 of Guatemala (lat. 14 10') the series again acquires its old 

 direction, N. 45 W., which it continues as far as the Mexi- 

 can boundary towards Chiapa and the isthmus of Huasa- 

 cualco. North- West of the volcano of Soconusco to that 



63 Mount Edgecombe, or the St. Lazarus mountain, upon the small 

 island (Croze's Island, near Lisiansky), which is situated to the west- 

 ward, near the northern half of the larger island Sitka or Baranow, in 

 Norfolk Sound, was seen by Cook, and is a hill partly composed of 

 basalt abounding in olivine, and partly of felspathic trachyte. Its 

 height is only 2770 feet. Its last great eruption, which produced 

 much pumice-stone, was in the year 1796 (Lutke*, Voyage autour 

 dn Monde, 1836, t. iii, p. 15). Eight years afterwards Captain Lisiansky 

 reached the summit, which contains a crater-lake. He found at that 

 time no signs of activity anywhere on the mountain. 



