252 COSMOS. 



strongly in opposition to the absolute belief that the lower 

 volcanoes always have the most frequent eruptions. 



The grouping of volcanoes is of more importance than 

 their form and elevation, because it relates to the great geo- 

 logical phenomenon of upheaval upon fissures. These groups, 

 whether, according to Leopold von Buch, they rise in lines, 

 or, united around a central volcano, indicate the parts of 

 the crust of the earth, where the eruption of the fused in- 

 terior has found the least resistance, in consequence either 

 of the reduced thickness of the rocky strata, of their natural 

 structure, or of their having been originally fissured. Three 

 degrees of latitude are occupied by the space in which the 

 volcanic energy is formidably manifested in ^tna, in the 

 -5^olian islands, in Vesuvius, and the parched land (the Phle- 

 grjean Fields) from Puteoli (Dicasarchia) to Cumse, and as far 

 as the fire-vomiting Epopeus on Ischia, the Tyrrhenian isl- 

 and of Apes, ^naria. Such a connection of analogous 

 phenomena could not escape the notice of the Greeks. Stra- 

 bo says: "The whole sea, commencing from Cumas, as far 

 as Sicily, is penetrated by fire, and has in its depths certain 

 conduits communicating with each other and with the conti- 

 nent.* In such a (combustible) nature, as all describe it, ap- 



* See Strabo, lib. v., p. 248, Casaubon : ix^L KOi?uag Tivug ; and Iib« 

 vi., p. 276. Upon a double mode of production of islands the geogra- 

 pher of Amasia expresses himself (vi., p. 258) with much geological 

 acumen. "Some islands," says he (and he names them), "are frag- 

 ments of the main land; others have proceeded from the sea, as still 

 happens. For the islands of the high sea (those which lie far out in 

 the sea) were probably upheaved from the depths ; while, on the con- 

 trary, it is more reasonable to consider those situated at promontories, 

 and' separated by a strait, as torn from the main land." The small 

 grou)) of the Pithecusai consists of Ischia, originally called ^naria, 

 and Procida (Prochyta). The reason why this group was considered 

 to be an ancient habitation of apes, why the Greeks and the Italian 

 Tyrrhenians, consequently Etruscans, gave it such a name (apes were 

 called dpifj.oL, in the Tyrrhenian ; Strabo, lib. xiii., p. 626), remains 

 veiy obscure, and is perhaps connected with the myth, according to 

 which the old inhabitants were transforme'd into apes by Jupiter. The 

 name of the apes, uptfiot, might relate to Arima, or Arimer, of Homer 

 {Iliad, ii., 783) and Hesiod {Tlieog., v., 301). The words elv 'Apijuoig 

 of Homer are contracted into one word in some codices, and in this 

 contracted form we find the name in the Roman writers (Virgil, 

 yEneid, ix., 716; Ovid, Metamorph., xiv., 88). Pliny (Hist. Nat., 

 iii., 5) even says decidedly : "^naria, Homero liiarime dicta, Grsecis 



Pithecusa." The Homeric country of the Arimer, Typhon's 



resting-place, was sought, even in ancient times in Cilicia, Mysia, 

 l^ydia, in the volcanic Pithecusse, at the crater Puteolanus, and in the 

 Phrygian Phlegraja, beneath which Typhon once lay, and even in the 



