SAN SALVADOR 



2i5 



ginous rocks interspsrsod with alum and sulphur. To judge from the accounts 

 of early writers, all the ausoles would appear to have diminished in temperature 

 and activity during the present century. 



Farther east is developed an igneous svstem, the Madre del Yolcan, with peaks 

 from 5,500 to 6,500 feet high, all of which — Apaneca, Launita (Lagunita), San 

 Juan, Aguila, Naranjo and others — are said by the inhabitants of Sonsonate to be 

 true volcanoes. But according to Dollfus and Mont-Serrat they are rather masses 

 of trachytic porphyry, covered with yellow clays and ashes ejected by distant 

 volcanoes. One, however, the Santa Ana (6,650 feet), appears to be a real crater, 

 which has been recently even in eruption. 



A far more celebrated, though less elevated, volcano is that of Izalco, which 



Fig-. 104. — Atjsol at Ahuachapam. • 



belongs to the same system, and which, like the Jorullo of Mexico, has made its 

 appearance since the arrival of the Spaniards in the New World. At the beginning 

 of the seventeenth century, its site, or at least the district near Sonsonate, was 

 occupied by ausoles like those of Ahuachapam, which, however, appear to have after- 

 wards become extinct. But on February 23, 1770, the ground suddenly opened 

 and ejected copious lava streams. Then the cone began to rise above the surface, 

 and has ever since continued to expand ; but since the first eruption it has ejected 

 nothing but ashes. Formerly the explosions were almost incessant, and the 

 volumes of fiery vapour rolling up from the crater at night earned for Izalco the 

 title of the Faro del Salvador ("Salvador Lighthouse"). Dollfus and Mont- 

 Serrat, who ascended it during a short period of repose in 1866, estimated its height 



