588 



GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARIES 



[Ch. XXIII. 



new islet which, illuminated the country for ten miles round ; 

 a frightful earthquake shook the new-formed cone, and 

 showers of stones were thrown as far as Umnack. The erup- 

 tion continued for several months, and eight years afterwards, 

 in 1804, when it was explored by some hunters, the soil was 

 so hot in some places that they could not walk on it. Accord- 

 ing to Langsdorf and others, this new island, which is now 

 several thousand feet high and two or three miles in circum- 

 ference, has been continually found to have increased in size 

 when successively visited by different travellers ; but we have 

 no accurate means of determining how much of its growth, 

 if any, has been due to upheaval, or how far it has been 

 exclusively formed by the ejection of ashes and streams of 

 lava. It seems, however, to be well attested that earthquakes 

 of the most terrific description agitate and alter the bed of 

 the sea and surface of the land throughout this tract. 



The line is continued in the southern extremity of the 

 Peninsula of Kamtschatka, where, according to Dittmar, there 

 are twelve active and twenty-six extinct volcanic cones. The 

 largest and most active of these is Klutschew, lat. 56° 3' N., 

 which rises at once from the sea to the prodigious height of 

 15,000 feet. Within 700 feet of the summit, Erman saw, in 

 1829, a current of lava, emitting a vivid light, flow down the 

 north-west side to the foot of the cone. Large quantities of 

 ice and snow opposed for a time a barrier to the lava, until at 

 length the fiery torrent overcame, by its heat and pressure, 

 this obstacle, and poured down the mountain side with a 

 frightful noise, which was heard for a distance of more than 

 fifty miles.* 



Mont Blanc is 15,760 feet high, but a flow of lava from its 

 summit to the base in the valley of Chamouni would give a 

 very inadequate idea of the descent of the Kamtschatka cur- 

 rent, because Chamouni is 3,500 feet above the level of the sea.f 



The Kurile chain of islands constitutes the prolongation of 

 the Kamtschatka range, where a train of volcanic mountains, 

 nine of which are known to have been in eruption, trends in a 



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* Von Buch, Descrip. des lies Canar. 

 p. 450, who cites Erman and others, 

 t For later eruptions in the Alaska, 



Kamtschatka, and Kurile region, see 

 Alexis Perry, Soc. Imp. de Lyon, 1863. 





4 



