i6 
MADAGASCAR 
peaks is called Tsiafajavona (i.e. “whose summit no cloud 
can reach”)*, it is 8705 ft. in height. 
Another group of mountains, consisting of a number of 
volcanic cones, is situated to the south-west of the capital, 
on the Itasy lake. Dr. Mullens writes of this: “ When 
we ascended the hjgh mountain that looks over the 
western part of the lake, we suddenly saw before us, to 
our great surprise, crater after crater. Some were of 
enormous size, others small, some were cone-shaped, 
others formed cavities, and others again were of horse¬ 
shoe form with high ridges of lava on the open side. 
The number of these craters may certainly be put down 
at 40, but we consider it very probable that there are 
others still further north. We came upon other volcanoes 
fifty miles further south. We ascended Ivoko, a high 
rounded hill, and discovered on reaching the top that 
we were on the edge of a crater. This cavity has 
an internal breadth of a quarter of a mile, the edge 
is TOGO feet above the plain. Two streams of lava 
on the west flowed in a southerly direction.” 
Quite in the northern part of the island the Ambohita 
or Amber mountain forms a considerable elevation. It 
is 4500 ft. high and is visible from a great distance. 
Lakes of great size are not numerous in Madagascar, 
but they are to be found. There is the Alaotra lake, at 
a height of 1500 ft. in the land of Sihanaka. This appears 
formerly to have had a much greater extent; its present 
length is put down at 26 miles; and there is a second 
in Imerina. The Itasy lake with its surroundings com¬ 
parable to the Phlegraean Fields, is only 8 miles long. 
The Wester 7 i Region is comparatively flat, becoming 
hilly towards the interior; it is traversed by low moun¬ 
tain ranges, and the elevation is more considerable 
towards the south than in the west. The rocks here 
belong to the chalk formation, besides which there are 
found deposits of jurassic and eocene limestone lying 
