XOTES. Ixxxix 



, Aristot. Meteor, ii. 8, 3; KCU yao T& irvp olov TTVCVUCITOS ns Averts, 

 Theophrast., De Igne, 30, p. 715.) Also from the clouds, the pneuma sud- 

 denly set free sends forth the kindling and far shining thunderbolt (TTPTJITT^P). 

 " In the Land of Fire, the Katakekaumene of the Lydians," says Strabo (lib. 

 xiii. p. 628), "there are still shown three hollows, fully forty stadia from each 

 other, which are called the Bellows; there lie over them rough hills, probably 

 piled up by the glowing masses which have been blown out." He had previously 

 said (lib. i. p. 57) that "between the Cyclades (Thera and Therasia) flames of 

 fire had for four days burst forth from the sea, so that the whole sea boiled and 

 burnt; and gradually an island formed of glowing masses was heaved up as by 

 a lever." All these phenomena, so well described, are attributed to the com- 

 pressed winds, acting as elastic vapours. Ancient physics concerned themselves 

 but little with the several varieties of substances; they were dynamic, and 

 regarded the measure of motive force. The view. of the increasing warmth of 

 the Earth with increasing depth as the cause of volcanoes and earthquakes, is 

 first found expressed, in the third century, by a Christian bishop in Africa, under 

 Diocletian. (Kosmos, Bd. iv. S. 244; English edition, p. 197.) The Pyri- 

 phlegethon of Plato, as a stream of fire circulating in the interior of the earth, 

 feeds all lava-giving volcanoes, as noticed above in the text, p. 261. ,In the 

 earliest presentiments of men, and within a small circle of ideas, we find the 

 germs of that which we now think we can explain under the form of other 

 symbols. 



( W7 ) p. 262. Mount Edgecombe, or Mount St. Lazarus, on the small 

 island (Croze's island) which lies west of the larger island of Sitka or Baranow 

 in Norfolk Sound, and which had already been seen by Cook, is a hill of only 

 2770 feet high, composed partly of basalt rich in olivine, and partly of felspathic 

 trachyte. Its last great eruption, which brought much pumice to the surface, 

 was in 1796. (Lutke, Voyage autour du Monde, 1836, t. iii. p. 15.) Eight 

 years afterwards, Captain Lisiansky went to the summit, where there is a 

 crater lake. He found at that time no indications of activity at any part of the 

 mountain. 



(**) p. 264. As early as under the Spanish dominion, in 1781, the 

 Spanish engineer, Don Jose' Galisteo, had found, for the surface of the Laguna 

 of Nicaragua, a height only six feet above that found by Baily in his different 

 levellings in 1838. (Humboldt, Rel. hist. t. iii. p. 321.) 



( 389 ) p. 265. Compare Sir Edward Belcher, Voyage round the World, 

 vol. i. p. 185. I found myself in the Papagayo storm, according to my chrono- 

 metric longitude 19 11' West of the meridian of Guayaquil, or in 99 07' W. 

 of Greenwich, 880 geographical miles west of the shore of Costa Rica. 



