TRUE VOLCANOES. 313 



his hand, before the picture of Nuestra Senora de Gua- 

 dalupe. 



According to the tradition, widely and concordantly 

 spread amongst the natives, the eruption, during the first 

 days, consisted of great masses of rock, scoriae, sand, and 

 ashes, but always combined with an effusion of muddy water. 

 In the memorable report, already mentioned, of the 19th 

 of October, 1759, the author of which was a man who, 

 possessing an accurate knowledge of the locality, describes 

 what had only just taken place, it is expressly said : Que 

 espele el dicho Volcan arena, ceniza y agua. All eye-witnesses 

 relate (I translate from the description which the Inten- 

 dant, Colonel Riano, and the German Mining Commissary, 

 Franz Fischer, who had passed into the Spanish service, 

 have given of the condition of the volcano of Jorullo on 

 the 10th March, 1789), " that before the terrible mountain 

 made its appearance (antes de reventar y aparecerse este 

 terrible Cerro), the earthquakes and subterranean noises 

 became more frequent ; but on the day of the eruption 

 itself the flat soil was seen to rise perpendicularly (se ob- 

 servo, que el plan de la tierra se levantaba perpendicular- 

 mente), and the whole became more or less inflated, so that 

 blisters (vexigones) appeared, of which the largest is now 

 the volcano (de los que el mayor es hoy el Cerro del Vol- 

 can). These inflated blisters, of very various sizes, and 

 partly of a tolerably regular, conical form, subsequently 

 burst (estas ampollas, gruesas vegigas 6 conos diferente- 

 mente regulares en sus figuras y tamanos,reventaron despues), 

 and threw boiling hot earthy mud from their orifices (tierras 

 hervidas y calientes), as well as scoriaceous stony masses (pie- 

 dras cocidas ? y fundidas), which are still found, at an 

 immense distance, covered with black stony masses." 



These historical records, which we might, indeed, wish to 

 see more complete, agree perfectly with what I learnt from 

 the mouths of the natives 14 years after the ascent of An- 

 tonio de Riano. To the questions, whether "the castle 

 mountain," was seen to rise gradually for months or years, 

 or whether it appeared from the very first as an elevated 

 peak, no answer could be obtained. Riano's assertion that 

 further eruptions had taken place in the first 16 or 17 

 years, and therefore up to 1776, was declared to be untrue. 



