ISLAND OF LANCEROTA. 31 
island of Forteventura, famous for the number of 
camels reared upon it, ané soon after the smaller 
one of Lobos. Spending part of the night on deck, 
the naturalists viewed the volcanic summits of Lan- 
cerota illumined by the moon, and enjoyed the 
beautiful serenity of the atmosphere. After a time, 
great black clouds, rising behind the volcano, shroud- 
ed at intervals the moon and the constellation of 
Scorpio. They observed lights carried about on the 
shore, probably by fishermen, and having been em- 
ployed occasionally during their passage in reading 
some of the old Spanish voyages, these moving 
fires recalled to their imagination those seen on the 
island of Guanahani on the memorable night of the 
discovery of the New World. 
In passing through the archipelago of small 
islands, situated to the north of Lancerota, they 
were struck by the configuration of the coasts, which 
resembled the banks of the Rhine near Bonn. It 
is a remarkable circumstance, our author observes, 
that, while the forms of animals and plants exhibit 
the greatest diversity in different climates, the rocky 
masses present the same appearances in both he- 
mispheres. In the Canary Isles, as in Auvergne, 
in the Mittelgebirge, in Bohemia, in Mexico, and 
on the banks of the Ganges, the trap formation dis- 
plays a symmetrical arrangement of the mountains, 
exhibiting truncated cones and graduated platforms. 
The whole western part of Lancerota announces 
the character of a country recently deranged by vol- 
canic action, every part being black, arid, and desti- 
tute of soil. The Abbé Viera relates, that in 1730 
more than half of the island changed its appearance. 
The great volcano ravaged the most fertile and best 
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