EARTHQUAKES AND VOLCANOES. 395 
The birth, of the volcano of Izalco occurred in 1770. It 
is, indeed, only a lateral opening of the volcano of Santa 
Ana, which, like iEtna, is a mother of mountains. San 
Marcellino, Naranjo, Tamasique, Aguila, San Juan, Launita, 
and Apaneca all seem to be her offspring. Near the base 
of the main volcano was, previous to 1770, a large cattle 
rancho. At the close of 1769 the people on this estate 
were alarmed by subterranean noises and earthquake 
shocks, which continued to increase in loudness and 
severity until February 23, when the earth opened 
about half a mile from the houses on the hacienda, 
emitting fire, smoke, and lava. The house-people fled 
from so terrible a neighbor; but the vaqueros, or cow¬ 
boys, who came daily to see the new monster, declared 
it grew worse and worse, throwing out more smoke and 
flame daily, and that while the flow of lava sometimes 
stopped for a while, vast quantities of sand and stones were 
thrown out instead. For more than a century this action 
has gone on, and the ejecta have formed a cone more than 
six thousand feet high, or higher than Vesuvius. At in¬ 
tervals of from ten to twenty minutes, loud explosions oc¬ 
cur, with dense smoke and a puff of cinders and stones. 
By night the view from Sonsonate is very attractive, as the 
cloud of smoke is illuminated by the molten mass within, 
and the red-hot stones shoot through this darker mass and 
seem to ignite vapors, which flash like lightning. As these 
stones roll down the steep sides of the cone, they leave a 
faint track some distance (optical, probably), and sometimes 
the caldron boils over, sending rills of molten lava down 
the cone. Well may the sailors call this “ El faro de 
Salvador,” —the lighthouse of Salvador. Like Stromboli, 
it is always active; and while most volcanoes are noted for 
