6 
the present condition op 
glancing light. Even the peculiar beauties which the summits 
of the Alps borrow from the atmosphere, are sometimes dis¬ 
played. The Swiss, gazing on the lofty and majestic form of 
a volcanic mountain, is astonished to behold, at the rising of 
the sun, the peaks inflamed with the same rose red glow which 
the snowy summits of Mont Rosa and Mont Blanc reflect at its 
setting, and the smoke wreaths, as they ascend from the crater 
into mid air, shining in golden hues like the clouds of heaven.* 
But serene in their beauty and magnificence as these mountains 
generally appear, they hide in their bosoms elements of the 
highest terrestrial sublimity and awe, compared with whose 
appalling energy, not only the bursten lakes and the rushing 
avalanches of the. Alps, but the most devastating explosions of 
Vesuvius or Etna, cease to terrify the imagination. "When we 
look upon the ordinary aspects of these mountains, it is almost 
impossible to believe the geological story of their origin, and if 
our senses yield to science, they tacitly revenge themselves by 
placing in the remotest past, the era of such convulsions as it 
relates. But the nether powers though imprisoned are not 
subdued. The same telluric energy which piled the mountain 
from the ocean to the clouds, even while we gaze in silent 
worship on its glorious form is gathering in its dark 
womb, and time speeds on to the day, whose coming 
science can neither foretell nor prevent, when the mountain 
is rent; the solid foundations of the whole region are shak¬ 
en ; the earth is opened to vomit forth destroying fires upon 
the living beings who dwell upon its surface, or closed to 
engulph them; the forests are deluged by lava, or withered 
by sulphureous vapours; the sun sets at noonday behind the 
black smoke which thickens over the sky, and spreads far 
, and wide, raining ashes throughout a circuit hundreds of miles 
in diameter; till it seems to the superstitious native that the 
fiery abodes of the volcanic dewas are disembowelling them¬ 
selves, possessing the earth, and blotting out the heavens. 
The living remnants of the generation whose doom it was to 
inhabit Sumbawa in 1815, could tell us that this picture is but 
* M. Zollinger in describing Mount Semiru in Java notices this singular 
resemblance to the mountains of his native country. 
