CURIOUS VOLCANIC PHENOMENON. 



480 



out by Cotopaxi, along with floods of vapour, smoke, and 

 seething water, very few are so disfigured as to induce 



A SHOWER OF FISIIES. 



the belief that they have been exposed to the action of ex- 

 treme heat. 



A French writer offers the following explanation of 

 this curious circumstance. 



In the interval, frequently exceeding a century, be- 

 tween two consecutive eruptions, the volcanic crater closes 

 up its rents and crevasses, and the bottom soon becomes, 

 as Vesuvius shows us, a level, or nearly level plain. 



Tn the course of time this plain is converted into a 

 lake ; and all the more easily because, far from being, 



