249 



him on the coasts of Baetica. He carefully com- 

 bines the notions he can acquire from travellers ; 

 but in the little that has been transmitted to us 

 of these notions, and in the more minute des- 

 criptions of Sebosus and Juba, there is no 

 mention of volcanoes or volcanic eruptions. 

 Scarcely can we recognise the isle of Teneriffe, 

 and the snows with which the summit of the 

 Peak is covered in winter, in the name of Niva- 

 ria, given to one of the Fortunate Islands. 

 Hence we might conclude, that the volcano at 

 that time threw out no flames ; if it were per- 

 mitted to interpret the silence of a few authors, 

 whom we know only by short fragments, or dry 

 nomenclatures. The naturalist vainly seeks in 

 history for documents of the first eruptions of 

 the Peak, he no where finds any but in the lan- 

 guage of the Guanches, in which the word 

 Echeyde* denotes at the same time Hell and 

 the volcano of TenerifFe. 



Of all the written testimonies, the oldest I 

 have found of the activity of this volcano dates 

 from the beginning of the sixteenth century. It 



* The same mountain bore the name of Aya-dyrma, in 

 which Horn (de Originib. Americ. p. 155 and 185) imagines 

 he finds, the ancient denomination of Atlas ; which, according 

 to Stra-bo, Pliny, and SoJinus, was Dyris. This etymology 

 is very doubtful - } but in not giving more importance to the 

 vowels, than they have among the people of the East, we find 

 Dyris almost complete in the word Daran, by which the Ara- 

 bian geographers denote the eastern part of Mount Atlas. 



