lt)4 7h(Alinrt<)tii (ri nliH/tst . S<'i)teniber, 18'.)1 
cones sufficient loose fragmentary nuiteiiul ( wliicli iiad. long pre- 
viously probably, been erupted from volcanoes ) to their present 
position, where dry and hard the stratum ( c ) is now four and 
one-half feet thick. 
The people whose footprints are found so numerous on stratum 
( i ) must have removed from that locality liefore the occurrence 
of the •• aluvion de barro" which formed the now hard stratum 
( g ), because that flood of mud must have been over fifteen feet 
deei). 
These strata dried slowly in a moist atmosphere; the}' are not 
fissured, consequently the}' did not dry rapidlj'; the}' show no in- 
dications of having been schisted, nor have any cracks afterwards 
been filled up by washed materials. 
The time when men, dogs and horses* fled to Managua to shel- 
ter themselves from the highly heated cinders and ashes ejected 
from volcano Masaya, was most prol)al»ly very long ago. 
We may go back, in time, toward that epoch guided by such 
facts as the following. From intelligent and reliable witnesses 
we learn that volcano Masaya, alxjut ten miles eastward from the 
city of Managua and on the west side of the city of Masaya, 
commenced on the lOth of November, 1858, emiting ( from a 
fissure in its side about f(^ur hundred feet below the rim of its crater 
containing a lake of water ) aqueous vapors, sulphurous acid gas, 
chlorine gas, carbon dioxide, etc. This continued for about ten 
dayst then ceased, and, although a part of that fissure still exists, 
gapping and ugly, yet the entire volcanic mass is now so cool 
that its sides and the outer and inner edges of its crater are cov- 
ered with small green trees and flowering plants, accompanied }jy 
many birds ( 5 ) which appear to consider that volcano extinct. 
From history we learn that on the 10th of March, 1762, a 
fissure opened in the side of this volcano Masaya about three hun- 
dred feet below the rim of the crater, and poured out lava, at 
intervals, for several days, which covered an area about one-half 
*No impressioa of the side toes of horses have been found in this 
stratum ( i ), in the two or three inch deep impressions of horses' feet. 
tTlie statements are various. 
(5) I here noticed in the volcanic part of Nicaragua and in other 
countries, that birds seldom or never visit volcanoes that liavc hot tops 
and have no isogeothermal plane corresponding with the surrounding 
country; birds and wMld animals appear tc have an instinctive knowl- 
edge of the natural causes, dynamic and kinetic, at work in the 
mysterous depths of the earth. 
