208 COSMOS. 



hydrogen and four parts of nitrogen gas that no ignition took 

 place. The gaseous emanations, which from their ready in- 

 flammability and the color of their flame are usually called 

 emanations of pure and carbureted hydrogen, need, therefore, 

 consist quantitatively only of one third part of one of the 

 last-mentioned gases. With mixtures of carbonic acid and 

 hydrogen, which occur more rarely, the limits of inflamma- 

 bility prove different again, on account of the capacity for 

 heat of the former. Acosta justly suggests the question: 

 "Whether a tradition disseminated among the inhabitants 

 of Turbaco, descendants of the Indios de Taruaco, according 

 to which the Volcancitos formerly all burned, and were con- 

 verted from Volcanes defuego into Vokanes de agua, by be- 

 ing exorcised and sprinkled with holy water by a pious 

 monk,* may not refer to a condition which has now re- 

 turned?" Single great eruptions of flames from mud vol- 

 canoes, which both before and since have been very inactive 

 (Taman, 1793 ; on the Caspian Sea, near Jokmali, 1827 ; 

 and near Baklichli, 1839; near Kuschtschy, 1846, also in 

 the Caucasus), present analogous examples. 



The apparently unimportant phenomenon of the salses of 

 Turbaco has gained in geological interest by the terrible 

 eruption of flame, and the terrestrial changes which occurred 

 in 1839, more than 32 geographical miles to the NN.E. of 

 Cartagena de Indias, between this harbor and that of Saba- 

 nilla, not far from the mouth of the great Magdalena River. 

 The true central point of the phenomenon was the Cape 

 Galera Zamba, which projects 6 8 geographical miles into 

 the sea, in the form of a narrow peninsula. For the knowl- 

 edge of this phenomenon we are also indebted to Colonel 

 Acosta, of whom science has unfortunately been deprived by 

 an early death. In the middle of the tongue of land there 

 stood a conical hill, from the crater of which smoke (vapors) 

 and gases sometimes poured forth with such violence that 

 boards and large pieces of wood which were thrown into it 

 were cast back again to a great distance. In the year 1839 

 the cone disappeared during a considerable eruption of fire, 

 and the entire peninsula of Galera Zamba became an island, 



* Humboldt, Vues des CordiUeres et Monuments des peuples indigenes 

 de FAmerique, pi. xli., p. 239. The beautiful drawing of the Volcan- 

 citos de Turbaco, from which the copper-plate was engraved, was 

 made by my young fellow-traveler, Louis de Eieux. Upon the old 

 Taruaco in the first period of the Spanish Conquista, see Herrera, Dec. 

 i., p. 251. 



