Ch. XIV.] AGE OF CATALONIAN VOLCANOS. 191 
several subterranean caverns,, about twelve in number, which 
are called in the country ' bufadors/ from which a current of 
cold air issues during summer ; but which in winter is said to 
be scarcely perceptible. I visited one of these bufadors in the 
beginning of August, 1830, when the heat of the season was 
unusually intense, and found a cold wind blowing from it, 
which may easily be explained, for as the external air when 
rarefied by heat ascends, the cold air from the interior of the 
mountain rushes in to supply its place. 
Age of the Catalonian volcanos uncertain. — It now only 
remains to offer some remarks on the probable age of these 
Spanish volcanos. Attempts have been made to prove, that in 
this country, as well as in Auvergne and the Eifel, the earliest 
inhabitants were eye-witnesses to the volcanic action. In the 
year 1421 it is said, when Olot was destroyed by an earth- 
quake, an eruption broke out near Amer, and consumed the 
town. The researches of Don Francisco Bolos have, I think, 
shown, in the most satisfactory manner, that there is no good 
historical foundation for the latter part of this story ; and any 
geologist who has visited Amer must be convinced that there 
never was any eruption on that spot. It is true that, in the 
year above-mentioned, the whole of Olot, with the exception of 
a single house, was cast down by an earthquake ; one of those 
shocks which at distant intervals, during the last five centu- 
ries, have shaken the Pyrenees, and particularly the country 
between Perpignan and Olot, where the movements, at the 
period alluded to, were most violent. 
Some houses are said to have sunk into the earth ; and this 
account has been corroborated by the fact that, within the 
memory of persons now living, the buried arches of a Bene- 
dictine monastery were found at a depth of six feet beneath the 
surface; and still later, some houses were dug out in the street 
called Aigua. Don Bolos informed me, that he was present 
when the latter excavation was made, and when the roof of a 
buried house, nearly entire, was found six feet beneath the sur- 
face, the interior being in a great part empty, so that it was 
