3^2 REACTION OF THE INTERIOR OF THE EARTH 



ferous mountains of the valley of the Backsan Elver, 

 has a crater-lake. Similar crater-lakes are found in the 

 rough highland of Kely, and lava currents can be seen 

 to have flowed from them between cones of eruption. 

 Here, as in the Cordilleras of Quito, the basalts are 

 widely separated from the trachyte systems ; they only 

 begin twenty-four and thirty-two miles south of the 

 Elburuz chain, and of Tschegem, on the upper valley 

 of the Phasis or Rhion. 



|8. THE NORTH- EASTERN PART or ASIA. 

 (Peninsula of Kamtschatka.) 



The Peninsula of Kamtschatka, from Cape Lopatka 

 (according to Krusenstern in 51 3 N. lat.) northward 

 to Cape Ukinsk, belongs to the same category as the 

 Island of Java, Chili, and Central America, these being 

 the regions on the earth's surface where the greatest 

 number of volcanoes, and, moreover, the greatest num- 

 ber of still active volcanoes are congregated together 

 on a comparatively small area. In Kamtschatka four- 

 teen are enumerated in a length of 420 geographical 

 miles. For Central America, I find, in 680 such 

 miles (from the volcano of Soconusco to Turrialva 

 in Costa Rica), twenty-nine volcanoes, of which eighteen 

 are burning ; for Peru and Bolivia in 420 miles (from 

 the volcano Chacani to that of San Pedro de Atacama), 

 fourteen volcanoes, of which three are at present active ; 

 for Chili, in 960 miles (from Volcan de Coquimbo to 

 V. de San Clemente), twenty-four volcanoes, of which 

 thirteen are known to have been active within historic 



