TRUE VOLCANOES 297 



With regard to the activity of the volcanoes of Chili, we 

 have the important testimony of Charles Darwin, 80 who 

 refers very decidedly to Osorno, Corcovado, and Aconcagua 

 as being ignited ; the evidence of Meyen, Poppig, and 

 G*y, who ascended Maipu, Antuco and Peteroa ; and that 

 of Domeyko, the astronomer Gilliss, and Major Philippi. 

 The number of active craters may be fixed at thirteen, only 

 five fewer than in the group of Central America. 



From the five groups of serial volcanoes of the New Con 

 tinent, which we have been able to describe from astrono- 

 nomical local determinations, and for the most part also hyp- 

 sometrically as to position and elevation, let us now turn to 

 the Old Continent, in which, in complete opposition to the 

 New World, the greater part of the approximated volcanoes 

 belong not to the mainland but to the islands. Most of the 

 European volcanoes are situated in the Mediterranean Sea, 

 and indeed (if we include the great and repeatedly active 

 crater between Thera, Therasia, and Aspronisi), in the Tyr- 

 rhenian and ^Egsean parts ; in Asia the most mighty vol- 

 canoes are situated to the south and east of the continent 

 on the large and small Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, and 

 the Philippines, in Japan, and the Archipelagoes of the 

 Kurile and Aleutian Islands. 



In no other region of the earth's surface do such frequent 

 and such fresh traces of the active communication between 

 the interior and exterior of our planet show themselves, as 

 upon the narrow space of scarcely 12,800 geographical (16.928 

 English) square miles between the parallels of 10 south and 

 14 north latitude, and between the meridians of the southern 

 point of Malacca and the western point of the Papuan penin- 

 sula of New Guinea. The area of this volcanic island- world 

 scarcely equals that of Switzerland, and is washed by the 

 seas of Sunda, Banda, Solo, and Mindoro. The single island 

 of Java contains a greater number of active volcanoes than 

 the entire southern half of America, although this island 

 is only 544 miles in length, that is, only one-seventh of the 

 length of South America. A new but long-expected light 

 has recently been diffused over the geognostic nature of Java 

 (after previous very imperfect but meritorious works by 



80 See Darwin, Journal of Researches in Natural History and Geology 

 during the Voyage of the Beagle, 1845, pp. 275, 291, and 310. 



