TRUE VOLCANOES. 28] 



the Old Continent, in which, in complete opposition to thq 

 New World, the greater part of the approximated volcanoes 

 belong not to the main land but to the islands. Most of the 

 European volcanoes are situated in the Mediterranean Sea, 

 and, indeed (if we include the great and repeatedly active 

 crater between Thera, Therasia, and Aspronisi), in the Tyr- 

 rhenian and JEgaean parts ; in Asia the most mighty volca- 

 noes are situated to the south and east of the continent, on 

 the large and small Sunda Islands, the Moluccas, and the 

 Philippines, in Japan, and the Archipelagoes of the Kurile 

 and Aleutian Islands. 



In no othf^aregion of the earth's surface do such frequent 

 and such fr^'^ traces of the active communication between 

 the interior and exterior of our planet show themselves as 

 upon the narrowspace of scarcely 12,800 geographical (16,928 

 English) square miles between the parallels of 10° south and 

 14° north latitude, and between the meridians of the south- 

 ern point of Malacca and the western point of the Papuan 

 peninsula of New Guinea. The area of this volcanic island- 

 world scarcely equals that of Switzerland, and is washed by 

 the seas of Sunda, Banda, Solo, and Mindoro. The single 

 island of Java contains a greater number of active volcanoes 

 than the entire southern half of America, although this is^ 

 and is only 544 miles in length, that is, only one seventh of 

 the length of South America. A new but fong-expected 

 light has recently been diffused over the geognostic nature of 

 Java (after previous very imperfect but meritorious works by 

 Horsfield, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, and Reinwardt), by 

 a learned, bold, and untiringly-active naturalist, Franz Jung- 

 huhn. After a residence of more than twelve years, he has 

 given the entire natural history of the country in an instruct- 

 ive work — Java, its Form, vegetable Covering, and internal 

 Structure. More than 400 elevations are carefully determ- 

 ined barometrically; the volcanic cones and bell-shaped 

 mountains, forty-five in number, are represented in profile, 

 and all but three* of them were ascended by Junghuhn. 

 More than half (at least twenty-eight) were found to be still 

 burning and active ; their remarkable and various profiles are 

 described with extraordinary clearness, and even the attain- 

 able history of their eruptions is investigated. No less im- 

 portant than the volcanic phenomena of Java are its sedi- 

 mentary formations of the tertiary period, which were en- 

 tirely unknown to us before the appearance of the complete 

 * Junghuhn, Java, bd. i., s. 79. 



