88 VOLCANIC CONES AND HILLS. Book I. 
in Honduras. All this way it leaves the low region of the 
Nicaraguan lakes, and of the gulf of Fonseca to the south- 
west, and the table-land of Upper Mosquitia, Matagalpa, 
and New Segovia to the north-east. This ridge, strictly 
speaking, is more the edge of a table-land than a central 
chain of mountains, though the table-land, of course, has a 
decided slope to the east and north-east. 
A second range of hills runs along the coast. It has 
occasional depressions, and at several places is entirely in- 
terrupted. The first depression is between the Bio Sapoa 
and the bay of Salinas, the second between Virgin Bay and 
San Juan del Sur, the third between the lake of Managua, 
near Nagarote, and the little bay of Tamarinda. South 
of Leon it is interrupted by the little river which, from 
the plain around the capital, passes to the sea-coast ; and 
around the port of Bealejo the broad plain of the interior 
is entirely open towards the Pacific. North-west of Bealejo, 
however, the hills of the coast begin again, the range be- 
coming higher and higher, till, at the entrance of the gulf 
of Fonseca, it terminates abruptly with the famous volcano 
of Coseguina. 
Between these two lines of elevations there is a third 
one, consisting of a series of isolated volcanic cones and 
hills. Beginning in the south-east, the first of these de- 
tached elevations is the island Solentenami, in the lake of 
Nicaragua. Then come the two cones of the island of 
Ometepe, the island of Zapotera, the Mombacho, the 
volcano of Masaya, the hills of the peninsula between 
Managua and Mateares, the island Momotombito in the 
lake of Managua, the Momotombo, which, I think, is the 
highest peak among the chain of the Maribios, and the 
highest mountain in Nicaragua, reaching an altitude of 
7000 feet, the Axosco, the Pilas, the Orota, the Telica, 
