TRUE VOLCANOES. 



endured after the period of its first eruption is not proved 

 historically ; for the valuable letter, so happily discovered, 

 of Father Joaquin de Ansogorri, written scarcely three weeks 

 after the first eruption, treats almost exclusively of the means 

 of making " arrangements for the better pastoral care of the 

 country people who had fled from the catastrophe and be- 

 come dispersed ;" and for the following thirty years we have 

 no records. As the tradition speaks very generally of fires 

 which covered so great a surface, it is certainly to be sup- 

 posed that all the six hills upon the great fissure, and the 

 portion of the Malpais itself in which the hornitos have ap- 

 peared, were simultaneously in combustion. The tempera- 

 ture of the surrounding air, which I measured, allows us to 

 judge of the heat which prevailed there 43 years previously ; 

 they remind one of the former condition of our planet, in 

 which the temperature of its atmospheric envelope, and with 

 this the distribution of organic life, might be modified by the 

 thermic action of the interior by means of deep fissures (un- 

 der any latitude and for long periods of time). 



Since I described the hornitos which surround the volcano 

 of Jorullo, many analogous platforms in various regions of 

 the world have been compared with these oven-like little hills. 

 To me the Mexican ones, from their interior conformation, 

 appear still to stand in a very contrasting and isolated con- 

 dition. If all upheavals which emit vapors are to be called 

 eruptive cones, the hornitos certainly deserve the appellation 

 of Fumaroles. But the denomination eruptive cones would 

 lead to the erroneous notion that there is evidence that the 

 hornitos have thrown out scoriae, or even, like many eruptive 

 cones, poured forth lava. Very different, for example (to 

 advert to a great phenomenon), are the three chasms in Asia 

 Minor, upon the former boundaries of Mysia and Phrygia, in 

 the ancient burning country (Katakekaumene), " where it is 

 dangerous to dwell (on account of the earthquakes)," which 

 Strabo calls cfrvoai, or wind-bags, and which the meritorious 

 traveler, William Hamilton, has rediscovered.* Eruptive 

 cones, such as are exhibited by the island of Lancerote near 



* Strabo, lib. xiii., p. 579 and 628; Hamilton, Researches in Asia 

 Minor, vol. ii., chap. 39. The most western of the three cones, now 

 called 'Kara Devlit, is raised 532 feet above the plain, and has emitted 

 a great lava stream in the direction of Koula. Hamilton counted more 

 than thirty small cones in the vicinity. The three chasms ((369poi and 

 (pixrai of Strabo) are craters situated upon conical mountains composed 

 of scoriae and lavas. 



