354 COSMOS. 



Asiatic islands. Close to the east coast of Formosa (lat. 24) 

 a great volcanic eruption in the sea was observed by Lieu- 

 tenant Boyle in 1853 (Commodore Perry, Expedition to Japan, 

 vol. i., p. 500). Among the Bonin Islands (Buna-sima of the 

 Japanese, lat. 26i to 27f , and long. 142 15"), that called 

 Peel's Island has several craters abounding in sulphur and 

 scorias, which do not appear to have been long extinct (Per- 

 ry, i., p. 200 and 209). 



VI. ISLANDS OF SOUTHERN ASIA. 



We comprehend under this division Formosa (Tay van), the 

 Philippines, the Sunday Islands, and the Moluccas. Klap- 

 roth first made us acquainted with the volcanoes of Formosa 

 by information extracted from Chinese sources, which are 

 always so copious in their descriptions of nature.* They are 

 four in number, and of these the Chy-kang (Red Mountain), 

 whose crater contains a hot-water lake, has experienced great 

 igneous eruptions. The small Baschi Islands and the Babu- 

 yans, which so late as 1831, according to Meyen's testimony, 

 experienced a violent eruption of fire, connect Formosa with 

 the Philippines of which the smallest and most broken islands 

 abound most in volcanoes. Leopold von Buch enumerates 

 nineteen lofty isolated conical mountains upon them, which 

 in the country are called volcanes, though probably some of 

 them are closed trachytic domes. Dana is of opinion that 

 in southern Luzon there are only two active volcanoes that 

 of Taal, which rises in the Laguna de Bongbong, with an en- 

 circling escarpment which incloses another lagoon (see page 

 232) ; and in the southern portion of the peninsula of Cama- 

 rines the volcano of Albay, or May on, which the natives call 

 Isaroe. The latter, which is 3197 feet high, experienced 

 great eruptions in the years 1800 and 1814. In the northern 

 portion of Luzon granite and mica-slate, and even sediment- 

 ary formations, together with coal, are diffused, f 



* Compare my Fragmens de Gcoloyie et de Ctimatoloyie Asiatiqties, 

 t. i., p. 82, which appeared immediately after my return from my Si- 

 berian expedition, and the Asie Ceritrale, in which the opinion ex- 

 pressed by Klaproth, and which I formerly adopted, respecting the 

 probability of the connection of the snowy mountains of the Himalaya 

 with the Chinese province of Yunan and with Nanling, northwest- 

 ward of Canton, has been confuted by me. The mountains of For- 

 mosa, upward of 11,000 feet high, as well as Ta-yu-ling, which bounds 

 Fukian to the westward, belong to the system of meridian fissures of 

 Upper Assam, in the country of the Burmese, and in the group of the 

 Philippines. 



f Dana's Geology, in the Explor. Exped., vol. x., p. 540-545; Ernest 



