TRUE VOLCANOES. 367 



to say, the same number of kilometres, in diameter"), the 

 remarkable geological phenomenon of effusions of lava and 

 scoriae from a blistery and often brick-coloured volcanic 

 rock, which in its turn has penetrated through fissures in the 

 earth, at the greatest possible distance from any frame- 

 work of raised cones (Erman, Beise, Bd. iii, s. 221, 228 

 and 273 ; Buch, lies Canaries p. 454). The analogy is here 

 very striking with what I have already circumstantially 

 explained regarding the Malpays, the problematic fields of 

 debris in the elevated plain of Mexico (see page 315). 



V. ISLANDS OF EASTERN ASIA. 



From Torres Strait, which, in the 10th degree of southern 

 latitude, separates New-Guinea and Australia, and from 

 the smoking volcano of Flores to the most northern of the 

 Aleutian Isles (lat. 55) there is a multitude of islands, 

 for the most part volcanic, which, considered in a general 

 geological point of view, it would be somewhat difnciilt, on 

 account of their genetic connection, to divide into separate 

 groups, and which increase considerably in circumference 

 towards the south. Beginning at the north we first observe 

 that the curved series 60 of the Aleutians, issuing from the 

 American peninsula of Alaska, connect the old and the new 

 continents together by means of the island Attu, near 

 Copper Island and Behring's Island, while to the south they 

 close in the waters of Behring's Sea. From Cape Lopatka, 

 at the southern extremity of the peninsula of Karntschatka, 

 we find succeeding each other in the direction from north to 

 south first, the Archipelago of the Kuriles, bounding on the 

 east the Saghalien or Ochotsk Sea, rendered famous by La 

 Perouse, next Jesso, probably in former times connected 

 with the island of Krafto 61 (Saghalin, or Tschoka), and 



60 See Dana's remarks on the curvatures of ranges of islands, whose 

 convexity in the South Sea is almost always directed towards the 

 Bouth or south-east, in the United States' Explor. Exped. by Wilkes, 

 vol. x (Geology by James Dana), 1849, p. 419. 



61 The island of Saghalin, Tschoka, or Tarakai, is called by the Ja- 

 panese mai-iners Krafto (written Karafuto). It lies opposite the mouth 

 of the Amoor (the Black River, Saghalian Ula), and is inhabited by the 

 Ainos, a race mild in disposition, dark in colour, and sometimes rather 

 hairy. Admiral Kruseiistern was of opinion, as were also previously 



