REVIEW OF VOLCANIC ACTION. 369 
the vapours of Kilauea (page 221): that consequently there is seldom 
any sympathy to be detected between different mountain cones of the 
same island, and far more seldom between those of different islands, 
(unless in very close proximity,) inasmuch as the furcation of the 
channels (when such exists) takes place far below the level to which 
the waters that ordinarily feed the fires gain access. 
X. That pulsations in the central igneous fluids of the globe have 
but little influence, if any at all, on the action of volcanoes ; for vents in 
the same vicinity are not cotemporaneously affected, and the phases of 
volcanic action are fully accounted for by a more superficial action.* 
In the foregoing remarks on volcanic action, there may be observed 
an implied distrust of the theoretical conclusions of an eminent Euro- 
pean geologist. The elevation hypothesis of von Buch,t has too 
readily gained almost universal currency. As an explanation of 
some particular cases, it may be satisfactory ; but its general applica- 
tion to volcanic mountains has not been sustained by facts observed 
by the writer. The hypothesis supposes the material of a volcanic 
mountain to be thrown out from several vents nearly on a plain, or 
* The views on volcanic action, ably presented by M. G. Bischof, appear to us to be 
especially erroneous, from his appealing to the internal igneous fluids for the source of 
volcanic action. In a diagram, he represents the crust fissured through, and supposes 
these fissures to admit water to these internal fires; an hypothesis which is unnecessary, 
as we believe, and not tenable. The entrance of water feeding the fires of Hawau, 
requires no fracturing of the crust: the process is gradual, and proceeds, as we have 
shown, from the ingress of surface waters which have become subterranean ; any frac- 
tures necessary, are simply fractures in the vicinity of the volcanic focus. 
+ Description Physique des Hes Canaries, by Leopold von Buch, (Paris, 1836,) a 
work of great merit and high reputation. ‘This French edition by C. Boulanger is a 
translation of several memoirs which appeared at Berlin between the years 1816 
and 1825, 
Von Buch’s views have been ably advocated by M. Elie de Beaumont in various 
writings on Etna, the result of much labour and close investigation, See Memoires 
pour servir a une Description Geologique de la France, tome iv, 1838; Bull. Soc. 
Geol. de France, volume for 18385; Jameson’s Edinb. New. Phil. Jour. xx. 376; 
Explic. de la Carte Geol. de la France, vol. i. 1841. 
See also M. Bischof, in Jameson’s Edinb. New. Phil. Jour. xxvi. 1839; and American 
Jour. of Science, xxxvi. 267, &c. 
The theory was first suggested by Humboldt in his travels. See his Personal Narra- 
tive, 1. 240, (Eng. Edit.) 
These peculiar views have been opposed by Mr. Lyell after an examination of Etna, 
(see his Principles, volume ii. chap. xili., 6th edit.,) and also with much sound reasoning 
by M. C. Prevost, Bull. Soc. Geol. de Paris, xi, 183. 
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