262 REACTION OF THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH 



Islands which form the southern boundary of the almost 

 closed Behring's Sea. We will pause to consider some 

 of these leading groups in more detail ; particularities 

 often lead, by their intercomparison, to the fundamental 

 relations of phenomena. 



The line of volcanoes of Central America (according 

 to the older nomenclature, the volcanoes of Costa Eica, 

 Nicaragua, San Salvador, and Guatemala) extends (from 

 the volcano Turrialva near Cartago to that of Soconusco) 

 over six degrees of latitude, 10 9' to 16 2' N., in a 

 generally S. E. and N. W. line, and, with its few curves, 

 has a length of 540 geographical miles, about equal to 

 the distance between Vesuvius and Prague. The most 

 near to each other (as if they had been upheaved upon 

 a single fissure only sixty-four miles long), are the eight 

 volcanoes which lie between the Laguna de Managua 

 and the Bay of Fonseca, between the volcano of Momo- 

 tombo, and that of Conseguina whose subterranean 

 thunder in 1835 was heard in Jamaica and in the high- 

 lands of Bogota, resembling the fire of artillery. In 

 Central America, and in the whole southern portion of the 

 New Continent, or, to speak even more generally, from 

 the Archipelago de los Chonos, in Chili, to the most 

 northern volcanoes of Edgecombe, on the small island 

 near Sitka, ( 387 ) and Mount Elias in Prince William's 

 Sound over a distance of 6400 geographical miles the 

 volcanic fissures have everywhere been opened on the 

 western side, or nearest to the shore of the Pacific. At 

 the point where the Central American line of volcanoes 

 (in lat. 131, north of the Grulf of Fonseca) enters the 

 State of San Salvador, at the volcano of Conchagua, the 

 directions, both of this line and of the western coast-line, 



