314 J". W. JT7DD ON THE ANCIENT VOLCANO OF 



district, we find the aiidesitic lavas and tuffs ejected during the Mio- 

 cene period gradually building up a cone of vast dimensions which 

 eventually covered an area nearly fifty miles in diameter. That, 

 as in the case of so many existing volcanos, eruptions took place 

 sometimes from the summit, and at others on the flanks of the 

 mountain, we have no room to doubt. The great volcano of 

 Schemnitz then doubtless presented an appearance very similar to 

 that of Etna at the present day ; that is to say, it consisted of an 

 enormous central mountain, upon the sides of which innumerable 

 parasitical cones had been thrown up, each pouring forth its lava 

 streams. Like Etna, too, the slopes of this old Hungarian volcano 

 were covered by the magnificent forests characteristic of a warm 

 temperate climate — gigantic Sequoias and pines, with oaks, beeches, 

 chestnuts, planes, poplars, and willows, and an undergrowth of vines 

 and herbaceous plants of subtropical character. And through these 

 forests roamed the Mastodon, the Dinoiherium, the Anchitherium, 

 and the Hy other ium, with species of the Rhinoceros, Tapir, and 

 many other forms, all of which are now extinct. 



This period of most violent eruption in the great Schemnitz volcano 

 appears to have been terminated by a paroxysmal outburst on the 

 very grandest scale, which resulted in the formation of a prodigious 

 crater of oval form. Vast as must have been the dimensions of this 

 crater, they did not exceed those of some of the still active volcanos 

 of the globe ; and cavities of equal size have perhaps been produced 

 by eruptions that have taken place during the historical epoch. The 

 result of this tremendous paroxysm was to reduce the Schemnitz cone 

 to a crater-ring of vast dimensions, one of those " basal wrecks " of a 

 volcano, as Mr. Darwin so appropriately named the similar magnifi- 

 cent examples which are found among the islands of the Atlantic 

 Ocean. 



The great paroxysmal outbursts which produced this vast crater 

 must have been succeeded, as is so frequently the case under similar 

 circumstances, by a considerable subsidence of the whole mountain 

 mass ; and in consequence of this, not only were all except the highest 

 portions of the crater-ring submerged beneath the sea, but the latter 

 found its way into the interior of the crater. The wider-spread 

 movements which had been taking taking place in Eastern Europe 

 had resulted, as Yon Hauer has so well shown, in the formation of a 

 number of inland seas with which the waters of the ocean had 

 not a perfectly free communication, and which are accordingly cha- 

 racterized by a stunted marine fauna. By a continuation of the 

 same earth-movements the communication of these seas with the 

 ocean was completely cut off, and a series of Caspians formed, cha- 

 racterized by a very remarkable brackish- water fauna. During these 

 periods (those, namely, of the " Sarmatische Stufe," and of the " Con- 

 geria- and Inzendorf beds ") the Hungarian volcanos rose as islands, 

 still clothed with a flora very similar in character to that of the pre- 

 ceding period, but in which the mammalian fauna had undergone 

 considerable change, through the disappearance of many of the old 

 forms and the addition of such new and more modern types as Hip- 



