288 COSMOS. 



formations whose old eruptions belong to historic periods, 

 or of which the structure and eruptive masses (craters of 



Fitzroy in the memorable expedition of the ships Adventure and 

 Beagle, and to the ingenious and more detailed labours of Charles 

 Darwin. The latter, with his peculiar generalizing view, has grasped 

 the connexion of the phenomena of earthquakes and eruptions of 

 volcanoes under one point of view. The great natural phenomenon 

 which destroyed the town of Copiapo on the 22nd of November, 1822, 

 was accompanied by the upheaval of a considerable tract of country 

 on the coast ; and during the exactly similar phenomenon of the 20th 

 February, 1835, which did so much injury to the city of Concepcion, 

 a submarine volcano broke out with fiery eruptions near the shore of 

 the island of Chiloe, near Bacalao Head, and raged for a day and a half. 

 All this, depending upon similar conditions, has also occurred formerly, 

 aud strengthens the belief that the series of rocky islands which lies 

 opposite to the Fjords of the mainland to the south of Valdivia and 

 of the Fuerte Maullin, and includes Chiloe, the Archipelago of Chonos 

 and Huaytecas, the Peninsula de Tres Monies, and the Islas de la 

 Campana, de la Madre de Dios, de Santa Lucia and los Lobos, from 

 39 53' to the entrance of the Straits of Magellan, is the crest of a 

 submerged western Cordillera projecting above the sea. It is true that 

 no open trachytic cone, no volcano, belongs to these fractis excequore 

 terris, but individual submarine eruptions, sometimes followed and 

 sometimes preceded by mighty earthquakes, appear to indicate 

 the existence of this western fissure (Darwin, On the connexion of 

 volcanic phenomena, the formation of mountain chains, and the effect of 

 the same powers, by which continents are elevated : in the Trans. Geol. 

 Society, 2nd series, vol. v, pt. 3, 1840, pp 606 615, and 629631 ; 

 Humboldt, Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, t. i. p. 190, and 

 t. ii. p. 287). 



The series of 24 volcanoes included in the group of Chili is as 

 follows, counting from north to south, from the parallel of Coquimbo 

 to 46 S. lat. : 



(a.) Between the parallels of Coquimbo and Valparaiso : 



Volcan de Coquimbo (lat. 30 5') ; Meyen, th. i. s. 385. 



Volcano of Limari. 



Volcano of Chuapri. 



Volcano of Aconcagua*, W.N",W., of Mendoza, lat. 32 39'; altitude 

 23,004 feet, according to Kellet (See p. 253, note), but according 

 to the most recent trigonometric measurement of the engineer 

 Amado Pissis (1854), only 22,301 feet; consequently, rather lower 

 than the Sahama, which Pentland now assumes to be 22,350 feet 

 (Gillis, U.S. Naval Astron. Exped. to Chili, vol. i. p. 13). The 

 geodetic basis of measurement of Aconcagua at 6797 metres, which 

 required eight triangles, has been developed by M. Pissis, in the 

 Anales de la Universidad de Chile, 1852, p. 219. 



