VOLCANIC AGENCIES. 



29 



Zealand, comprises the active cones of the New Hebrides, the Santa-Cruz and Solo- 

 mon g'rou]3s, the chain of the Philippines, and of Japan, where Milne reckons 129, 

 of which thirty-five are active, the Kurile Archipelago with sixteen, the Aleutian 

 Islands with thirty-four, of which ten are active. Through the Alaskan peninsula' 

 the series is connected with those of the west coast of America, which are continued 

 southwards to the Bridgeman and other cones and westwards to the New Shet- 

 land Islands. Here rises the breached crater of Deception Island with its circular 

 haven 18 or 20 miles round and 500 feet deep, whose flanks consisting of alternate 



Fig. 10. — Volcanoes of the Pacific. 

 Scale 1 : 200,000,000. 



3.000 Miles. 



strata of ice and ashes discharge rivulets of thermal waters. Lastly, this focus of 

 activity is connected by the arc of a circle passing by the south pole with the three 

 lofty cones of Erebus, Terror, and Melbourne, the first of Avhich still casts a lurid 

 light over the dreary waste of snow. Between these giants and New Zealand the 

 vast circuit is completed by a succession of islands and headlands, partly at least 

 composed of lavas. 



Within the circuit itself occur the lines of faults, through which have been 

 vomited mountains of scoriae or ashes, and most of these cones run in parallel lines 



