282 KEACTION OF THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH 



rican volcanoes, that of Guatemala (Central America) is 

 the only one which in 'mean height is exceeded by the 

 Java group. Although the Volcan de Fuego near Old 

 Guatemala is, according to Poggendorff's calculation, 

 13,109 English feet, or 874 feet higher than Gunung 

 Semeru, yet the rest of the Central American volcanic 

 series only range between 5000 and 7000 French feet, 

 instead of, as in Java, between 7000 and 10,000 feet. 

 The most lofty Asiatic volcano is to be found, however, 

 not in the islands, but on the continent ; for in the 

 peninsula of Kamtschatka the volcano of Kliutschewsk 

 rises to the height of 15,763 feet, or almost to that of 

 Kucu-Pichincha in the Cordilleras of Quito. The well- 

 filled volcanic range of Java, comprising more than 

 45 volcanoes, has its principal axis( 411 ) in a W.N.W. 

 and E.S.E. direction (more exactly, W. 12 K), being 

 parallel, not to the longitudinal axis of Java itself, but 

 to the volcanic series in the eastern part of Sumatra. 



The generality of direction in volcanic chains by no 

 means excludes the phenomenon to which attention has 

 been recently called in the great chain of the Himalayan 

 mountains, i. e. that three or four single lofty summits 

 may be so arranged as to constitute a short partial chain, 

 whose axis may form an oblique angle with the principal 

 axis of the entire chain. This fissure-phenomenon, 

 which has been observed, and in part put forward, 

 by Hodgson, Joseph Hooker, and Strachey, is of great 

 interest. ( 412 ) The short axes of secondary fissures 

 encounter the greater one, sometimes at almost a right 

 angle; and even in volcanic chains, the very highest 

 summits are often a little removed from the principal 

 axis. In the Javanese as in most volcanic series, no de- 



