Notice of Active and Extinct Volcanos. 305 



further to the west is the volcano of Orizaba, seventeen 

 thousand and three hundred feet high, and the peak of Popo- 

 cateplt seventeen thousand and six hundred feet high, and 

 the most lofty eminence in New Spain ; " the latter is con- 

 tinually burning, but for two or three centuries has thrown 

 nothing from the crater but smoke and ashes." 



" On the western side of the city of Mexico, are the volcanos 

 of Jorullo and Colima. The elevation of the latter is estimated 

 at about nine thousand feet. It frequently throws up smoke and 

 ashes, but has not been known to eject lava. 



" The volcano of Jorullo, situated between Colima and the 

 town of Mexico, is of much more modern dale than the rest, and 

 the great catastrophe which attended its first appearance, is per- 

 haps, (says Humboldt) one of the most extraordinary physical 

 revolutions in the annals of the history of our planet. 



" Geology points out parts of the ocean near the Azores, in 

 the Egean sea, and to the south of Iceland, (?) where, at recent 

 epoques, within the last two thousand years, small volcanic isl- 

 ands have risen above the surface of the water ; but it gives us 

 no example of the formation, from the centre of a thousand burn- 

 ing cones, of a mountain of scoriae and ashes one thousand six 

 hundred and ninety-five feet in height, comparing it only with 

 the level of the adjoining plains, in the interior of a continent, 

 thirty-six leagues distant from the coast, and more than forty-two 

 leagues from every other active volcano. 



" A vast plain extends from the hills of Aguasarco nearly to 

 the villages of Teipa and Pelatlan, both equally celebrated for 

 their fine plantations of cotton. Between the Picachos del Mor- 

 tero, the Cerros de las Cuevas, and de Cuiche, this plain is only 

 from two thousand four hundred to two thousand six hundred feet 

 above the level of the sea. In the middle of a tract of ground 

 in which porphyry with a greenstone base predominates, basal- 

 tic cones appear, the summits of which are crowned with veg- 

 etation, and form a singular contrast with the aridity of the plain, 

 which has been laid waste by volcanos. 



" Till the middle of the last century, fields covered with su- 

 gar-cane and indigo occupied the extent of the ground between 

 the two brooks called Cuitimba and San Pedro. They were 

 bounded by basaltic mountains, the structure of which seems to 

 indicate, that all this country, at a very remote period, had been 

 already several times convulsed by volcanos. These fields, wa- 

 tered by artificial means, belonged to the farm of Don Pedro di 

 Jorullo, and were among the most fertile in the country. 



Vol. XIII.— No. 2. 14 



