306 COSMOS. 



incline in consequence of the observations of Beinwardt, has 

 been rendered more than doubtful by recent observations. 

 Junghuhn, indeed, remarks " that the vast volcano Gunung 

 Merapi has not poured forth coherent, compact lava-streams 

 within the historical period of its eruptions, but has only 

 thrown out fragments of lava (rubbish), or incoherent blocks 

 of stone, although for nine months, in the year 1837, fiery 

 streams were seen at night running down the cone of 

 eruption." 99 But the same observant traveller has distinctly 



quently the identical formation of dioritic-trachyte of the volcanoes 

 of Orizaba and Toluca in Mexico, of the island Panaria in the Lipari 

 Islands, and of JEgina in the JSgean Sea ! 



99 Junghuhn, Bd. ii. s. 309 and 314. The fiery streaks which were 

 seen on the volcano G. Merapi, were formed by closely approximated 

 streams of scoriae (trainees de fragmens), by non-coherent masses, 

 which roll down during the eruption towards the same side, and strike 

 against each other from their very different weights on the steep 

 declivity. In the eruption of the G. Lamongau on the 26th March, 

 1847, a moving line of scoriae of this kind divided into two branches 

 several hundred feet below its point of origin. " The fiery streak," 

 we find it expressly stated (Bd. ii. s. 767), " did not consist of true 

 fused lava, but of fragments of lava rolling closely after one another." 

 The G. Lamongan and the G. Semeru are the two volcanoes of the 

 island of Java, which are found to be most similar, by their activity 

 in long periods, to the Stromboli, which is only about 2980 feet 

 high, as they, although so remarkably different in height (the Lamon- 

 gan being 5340 and the Semeru 12,235 feet high), exhibited eruptions 

 of scoriae, the former after pauses of 15 to 20 minutes (eruptions of 

 July, 1838, and March, 1847), and the second of 1 to 3 hours 

 (eruptions of August, 1836, and September, 1844,) (Bd. ii. s. 554 and 

 765 769). At Stromboli itself, together with numerous eruptions of 

 scoriae, small, but rare effusions of lava also occur, which, when 

 detained by obstacles, sometimes harden on the declivities of the 

 cone. I lay great stress upon the various forms of continuity or 

 division, under which completely or partially fused matters are thrown 

 or poured out, whether from the same or different volcanoes. Ana- 

 logous investigations, undertaken under various zones, and in accord- 

 ance with guiding ideas, are greatly to be desired, from the poverty 

 and great one-sidedness of the views, to which the four active Euro- 

 pean volcanoes lead. The question raised by me in 1802 and by my 

 friend Boussingault in 1831, whether the Antisana in the Cordilleras 

 of Quito has furnished lava-streams? which we shall touch upon 

 hereafter, may perhaps find its solution in the division of the fluid 

 matter. The essential character of a lava-stream is that of a uniform, 

 coherent fluid, a band-like stream, from the surface of which scales 

 separate during its cooling and hardening. These scales, beneath 

 which the nearly homogeneous lava long continues to flow, upraise 



