PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OP THE IONIAN ISLANDS. 53 
In the middle and end of June the district of Mount Ararat, 
in Armenia, was the scene of very numerous violent eruptions. 
These were continued at intervals throughout July, accom- 
panied by occasional shocks, at Naples, and in Styria, Illyria, 
and Lombardy, where much damage was done. In the middle 
of August there were other disturbances in Naples and its 
neighbourhood, and from the 28th to 30th October, Zante was 
shaken by nearly a hundred violent shocks within a week. 
The first shock was felt at sea, in a steamboat, six miles from 
the land. Still later in the year — in November and December 
— disturbances were felt both in Calabria and Armenia, and in 
the following January in Algiers. Lastly, on the 18th of 
February, 1841, very severe shocks were felt in parts of Italy, 
and on the 26th of the same month a most alarming shock 
again affected the town of Zante, the vibration lasting more 
than half a minute. This last disturbance was preceded by 
three days and nights of incessant rain, with violent gales of 
wind. 
These earthquakes are the more interesting, as no record is 
given of any shock in the other Ionian Islands within this 
period, and the shocks, if there were any, must have been 
very slight. It is not recorded that any damage was done in 
the Morea by either of these great Zante earthquakes. 
Probably connected with the origin of these local, though 
sometimes severe, earthquake shocks, are the deposits of sulphur 
and pitch, and the conversion of large quantities of carbonate 
into sulphate of lime, besides the occasional outburst of springs 
of water loaded with sulphuretted hydrogen. I have already 
suggested that below the limestones which were deposited as a 
floor over the Mediterranean before the upheaval of these 
islands, there is probably a sheet of lava, the result of volcanic 
eruptions in this district, which we know to have been, during 
the late tertiary period, the seat of extreme and very widely- 
spread volcanic action. Through cracks in this lava proceed, 
or have proceeded, sulphurous vapours, and these have ulti- 
mately made the changes. 
I have alluded to the mountains of Corfu, which, to a 
certain extent, is an outlying island ; but it still remains to 
describe the mountain system of the other islands. Of those, 
the Black Mountain of Ceplialonia forms the key and the most 
strongly-marked example. It consists of a single narrow north- 
north-west and south- south-east ridge, attaining the considerable 
elevation of 5,300 feet. It is very nearly parallel to the chain 
forming the western side of Zante (rising to about 2,300 feet), 
and also to the whole range of Ithaca. There is an inter- 
mediate and much lower range between the Black Mountain 
and Ithaca, ‘forming the coast range on the east side of 
