PHYSICAL FEATURES OF NICARAGUA. 273 



changed to niglit for a space of several hundred square miles, the sea was covered 

 Avith a dense layer of ashes and scoriœ arresting tlie progress of ships for a distance 

 of over 25 miles from the volcano, all verdure disappeared under a bed of dust at 

 least 16 feet thick, and the very shoreline encroached on the ocean and on the Gulf 

 of Fonseca. Westwards the trade winds wafted the dust 1,380 miles across the sea, 

 eastwards the counter-current precipitated it on Honduras, Yucatan, and Jamaica, 



Fiiî. 118. — iloMBACHO Volcano and Shoees of Lake ISTicaeagua. 



.^i*gs^%jt3|j._- --■- 



while the aerial eddies carried the ashes southwards to New Grenada. The crash, 

 of the ruptured mountain was heard on the Bogota uplands, a distance of over 

 1,000 miles as the crow flies. Altogether the ashes fell on a space of about 

 1,600,000 square miles, while the erupted matter was estimated at 1,750 billions of 

 cubic feet. The explosion lasted forty- three hours, but the people of the sur- 

 rounding plains had time to escape, with their domestic animals, followed by 

 wild beasts, birds and reptiles, beyond the reach of the stifling gases. 



Some 30 miles south-east of Coseguina rises the twin-crested mass of the 



51 



