220 ALLAN HANCOCK PACIFIC EXPEDITIONS VOL. 1 



Perhaps no other area in the world, at least within easy reach, equals 

 Albemarle Island as a demonstration of the various phases of volcanism. 

 The other islands give some good illustrations, but, in this respect, Albe- 

 marle stands supreme. It consists, in the main, of five large volcanoes, or 

 volcanic cones: three in the leg, 4,000, 4,000, and 3,780 feet; and two in 

 the foot, 4,230 and 5,000 feet. Perry Isthmus is of low altitude, but the 

 other valleys are much higher. Some of these cones are still active, but not 

 violently so. 



In many places the lava flows are still exposed from the crater rims 

 down to the sea. On all slopes of the large cones there are innumerable 

 cones and craters of all sizes. They are most pronounced on the north- 

 western slope of the northern volcano and on the western slope of the 

 most southwesterly one. Adjacent to the sea, on the northwestern part of 

 the island, many of the craters are incomplete, the seaward portion miss- 

 ing. Probably by some catastrophic action after the cones were formed, 

 great portions, sometimes as much as half the cone, were split off, leaving 

 a vertical section exposed. When the section is directly through the blow- 

 hole, it may give a perfect demonstration of the way in which the cone 

 was built up, layer after layer in such noticeable stratification that it 

 appears to be diagrammatic. When a large crater is exposed, it may show 

 secondary or even tertiary cones within the crater. 



The northeastern slope is much more gradual, down to Albemarle 

 Point, the northeastern point of the island. This is true also of the south- 

 eastern slope. 



The western slope of the southwestern cone, extending down to Cape 

 Christopher, has so many cones, crowded and interspersed, that the ap- 

 pearance is fantastic in the extreme. It would be impossible to count these 

 cones except from the air, and even then there are so many secondary and 

 tertiary cones, some of them rather small, that it would be a difficult mat- 

 ter. Apparently most of the cones have been formed from the fluid or 

 semifluid lava, as there appear to be few, if any, ash or cinder cones. 



Because of all this seismic activity it is quite impossible to give in a 

 few words any general description of the shores of such a large island. A 

 large proportion of it is raggedly rugged, but it may be high or low. It is 

 so rugged and so much of it is exposed so directly to the heavy surf, the 

 Cape Christopher area, for example, that it is unsafe to try to make shore 

 under any circumstances. There are numerous reefs and rocky ledges, but 

 few sandy beaches. There is one small one south of Albemarle Point, at 

 the northeast corner of the island, and some small ones in Cartago Bay, 

 but here the mangrove has spread out so much that there is little of them 



