TRUE VOLCANOES. 423 



been occnpied, having in all cases consulted the original 



certainly an unusual phenomenon in a solfatara, for although the 

 careful investigations of James Forbes and Poulett Scrope, leave no 

 room to doubt that an eruption took place from the Solfatara of Poz- 

 zuoli in the year 1198, yet one might be inclined to consider that event 

 as a collateral effect produced by the great neighbouring volcano, Vesu 

 vius (See Forbes in the Edinb. Journal of Science, vol. i, p. 128, and 

 Poulett Scrope in the Transact, of the Geol. Soc. 2nd Ser. vol. ii, p. 346). 

 Lancerote, Hawaii and the Sunda Islands furnish us with analogous 

 examples of eruptions at exceedingly great distances from the summit 

 craters, the peculiar seat of action. It is true the solfataraof Pozzuoli was 

 not disturbed on the occasion of great eruptions of Vesuvius in the 

 years 1794, 1822, 1850 and 1855, (Julius Schmidt, Ueber die Eruption des 

 Vesuvs. in Mai, 1855, p. 156), though Strabo (lib. v, p. 245), long before 

 the eruption of Vesuvius, speaks of fire, somewhat vaguely it is true, in 

 the scorched plains of Dicaarchia, near Curncea and Phlegra. Dicaarchia 

 in Hannibal's time received the name of Puteoli from the Romans who 

 colonised it. " Some are of opinion," continues Strabo, " on account of 

 the bad smell of the water that the whole of that district as far as 

 Baise and Cumoea is so called, because it is full of sulphur, fire and 

 warm water. Some think that on this account Cumoea (Cumanus ager) 

 is called also Phlegra . . . ." and then again Strabo mentions discharges 

 of fire and water, " irpo\oaQ TOV TTVOOQ Kai TOV r^'arog)." 



The recent volcanic action of the island of Martinique in the Mon- 

 tagne Pelee (according to Dupuget, 4706 feet high), the Vauclin and the 

 Pitons du Carbet is still more doubtful. The great eruption of vapour 

 on the 22nd January, 1792, described by Chisholm, and the shower of 

 ashes of the 5th August, 1851, deserve to be more thoroughly inquired 

 into. 



The Soufriere de la Guadeloupe, accoi'ding to the older measure- 

 ments of Amic and Le Boucher, 5435 and 5109 feet high, but accord- 

 ing to the latest and very correct calculations of Charles Sainte-Claire 

 Deville, only 4867 feet high, exhibited itself on the 28th September, 

 1797, 78 days before the great earthquake and the destruction of the 

 town of Cumana, as a volcano ejecting pumice (Rapport fait au Ge'ne'ral 

 Victor Hugues par Amic et Hapel sur le Volcan de la Basse Terre, 

 dans la nuit du 7 au 8 Vendimiaire, an 6, pag. 46; Humboldt, Voyage, 

 t. i, p. 316). The lower part of the mountain is dioritic rock, the vol- 

 canic cone, the summit of which is open, is trachyte, containing labra- 

 dorite. Lava does not appear even to have flowed in streams from the 

 mountain called on account of its usual condition, the Soufriere, either 

 from the summit crater, or from the lateral fissures, but the ashes of 

 the eruptions of Sept. 1797, Dec. 1836, and Feb. 1837, examined by 

 the excellent and much lamented Dufrenoy, with his peculiar accuracy, 

 were found to be finely pulverised fragments of lava, in which fel- 

 spathic minerals (labradorite, rhyakolite and sanidine) were recognisable 

 together with pyroxene. (See Lherminier, Daver, Elie de Beaumont 

 and Dufrenoy, in the Comptes rend us de V Acad. des Sc. t. iv, 1837, 

 pp. 294; 651 and 743749). Small fragments of quartz have also 



