TRUE VOLCANOES. 299 



of Chili, Bolivia, and Peru, and even to those of the two 

 groups of Quito with New Granada, and of Tropical Mexico. 

 The maxima attained by these American groups are : For 

 Chili, Bolivia, and Quito, 21,000 to 23,000 feet, and for 

 Mexico, 18,000 feet. This is nearly ten thousand feet 

 (about the height of Etna), more than the greatest elevation 

 of the volcanoes of Sumatra and Java. On the latter island 

 the highest still burning colossus is the Gunung Semeru, 

 the culminating point of the entire Javanese series of vol- 

 canoes. Junghuhn ascended this in September, 1844 ; the 

 average of his barometric measurements gave 12,233 feet 

 above the surface of the sea, and consequently 1748 feet 

 more than the summit of Etna, At night the centigrade 

 thermometer fell below 6.2 (43.2 Fahr.). The old Sanscrit 

 name of Gunung Semeru was MaM-Meru (the great Meru) ; 

 a reminiscence of the time when the Malays received Indian 

 civilisation, a reminiscence of the Mountain of the World 

 in the north, which, according to the Mahabharata, is the 

 dwelling-place of Brahma, Vishnu, and the seven Devarschi. 8 * 

 It is remarkable that, as the natives of the plateau of Quito 

 had guessed, before any measurement, that Chimborazo sur- 

 passed all the other snowy mountains -in the country, the 

 Javanese also knew that the Holy Mountain Maha-Meru, 

 which is but at a short distance from the Gunung Ajrdjuno 

 (11,031 feet) exhibited the maximum of elevation upon the 

 island, and yet, in this case, in a country free from snow, the 

 greater distance of the summit from the level of the lower 

 limit of perpetual snow could no more serve as a guide to 

 the judgment than the height of an occasional temporary fall 

 of snow. 84 



The elevation of the Gunung Semeru, which exceeds 

 11,000 (11,726 English) feet, is most closely approached 

 by four other mountains, which were found hypsometrically 

 to be between ten and eleven thousand feet. These 

 are: Gunung 89 Slamat, or mountain of Tegal (11,116 



83 Upon the signification of the word Meru, and the conjectures 

 which Burnouf communicated to me regarding its connection with 

 mira (a Sanscrit word for sea], see my Asie Centrale, t. i, pp. 114 116, 

 and Lassen's Indische Alterthumskunde, Bd. i, s. 847. The latter is 

 inclined to regard the names as not of Sanscrit origin. 



84 See page 240. 



85 Gununrj is the Javanese word for mountain, in Malayan, gHnong l 



