WERNERIAN SYSTEM. 
Tlic South 
American vol- 
canoes are of 
vast extent. 
Volcanoes 
emit primi- 
tive com- 
pomuis. 
are to be considered as “ new occurrences in the history of 
nature j” and that the volcanic state appears to be foreign to 
the earth*.” 
It is not in Europe, however, but in the Andes of South 
America, that the phenomena of volcanoes may be seen on 
the most instructive scale ; and the effects which there occur 
are by no means of that trivial character that Werner’s doctrine 
would lead us to imagine. The crater of Cotopaei is no less 
than 3000 feet in diameter, that of Rucupechensha about 
4,800 feet ; and the appearance of the surface in the adjoining 
countries corresponds with the magnitude of these enormous 
engines of destruction. The mountains of these regions being 
traversed in various places by crevices of vast depth, attributed 
by Humboldt to earthquakes ; one, for example, at Chota, in 
Peru, is more than 5000 feet deep, while their breadth is, in 
many instances, so small, that they are compared by that tra- 
veller to veins which have not been filled up. 
Sir James Hall has statedf , that amongst the erupted masses 
of Vesuvius there are some belonging to the class of primitive 
rocks ; and the statement is confirmed by Werner, for granites, 
with other primitive compounds, are enumerated among the 
substances ejected by that mountainj. A power, therefore, 
which, according to theorj', is confined to the newest Flcetz- ' 
trap formation, the nearest to the surface of the globe^, must 
* Jameson III, p. 96. 
thus 
1 Paper on Heat tinder Compression, Edinburgh Tiansactions. 
i Jameson, III, p. 213, 214; I. 56. 
f By this restriction we arc cut off from tlic only channel through 
which an acquaintance with the inteiior of the globe could have been 
hoped for. For Werner rejects, as we liave seen, tlie “ bold concep- 
tions” of Sanssure, that the secrets of the greatest depths are to be 
looked for in the Itighest mountains ; and tlic distance from the 
surface to which the works of art can penetrate is very insignificant. 
The deepest shaft at Kriltenbcrg in Bohemia, goes down 500 fathoms 
f Jameson, III, 230,) which would bring us nearer to the centre in the 
propoition of 1 to about 7000, if it had been sunk at the level of the 
sea. Humboldt, however, states, that the deepest European mine is 
lit 1338 6 feet in depth ; and the great mine at Valenciana in Mexico 
