AMONG THE VOLCANOES. 89 



During the first six days, the quantity of lava issuing 

 from the fissure of Monte Frumento was estimated at 117 cu- 

 bic yards a second. In the vicinity of the outlet, the speed 

 of the current was not less than twenty feet a minute ; but 

 lower down the velocity was diminished. On the second of 

 February, the principal current had traveled three miles. It 

 was from 900 to 1,600 feet wide and 49 feet deep. Here it 

 plunged like a cataract into a deep gorge. "It was a mag- 

 nificent spectacle, especially during the night, to see this sheet 

 of molten matter dazzling red like liquid iron, making its way 

 in a thin layer, from the heaps of brown scoriae which had 

 gradually accumulated above ; then carrying with it the more 

 solid lumps which dashed one against the other with a metallic 

 noise, it fell over into the ravine only to rebound in stars of 

 fire." In a few days, the ravine was filled and the lava stood 

 160 feet deep. From this the flow continued east toward 

 Mascali, filling to its brink, on the way, the winding gorge of 

 the dried up rivulet. By the middle of February, the river 

 of fire was more than six miles long, and its flow was more 

 and more slackened by incasement in a crust of cooled ma- 

 terial. Through this, it continually burst, in front and on the 

 sides, and new spurts darted off for short distances in various 

 directions, giving to the solidified stream an aspect character- 

 istically rough. Suddenly one of the outbursts far up the 

 stream, resulted in a new river, which flowed toward the plains 

 of Lingua grossa, swallowing up thousands of trees. The de- 

 structive action was not much longer continued, but months 

 after the commencement of the eruption, the molten fluid 

 within the incrusted river continued to burst forth in slowly 

 advancing and overlapping outflows, leaving an exterior black 

 and rough beyond description. 



This eruption may serve to illustrate the volume of molten 

 lava sometimes emitted from a volcano. Perhaps a more 

 striking example of volume is furnished by the volcano of 

 Coseguina, a hillock about 500 feet high on a promontory to 

 the south of the Bay of Fonseca in Central America. The 

 ashes thrown into the upper atmosphere spread out in a dark 



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