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This lodging of yours I had forgotten, though I never remembered it, indeed, because I did not know it; and as for your old lodgings, I could only remember it was at the Five Corners, Harlamov's house. I kept trying to find that Harlamov's house, and afterwards it turned out that it was not Harlamov's, but Buch's. How one muddles up sound sometimes!
They are chiefly laid down from Von Buch's work on the Canary Islands; and my reasons for making a few alterations are given in the note below. In the Sandwich group there are no active volcanoes, except at Hawaii; but the Rev. W. Ellis informs me, there are streams of lava apparently modern on Maui, having a very recent appearance, which can be traced to the craters whence they flowed.
Norway, though a member of the European family, with a population once so influential in the world's history, is comparatively the least known of all civilized countries to the world at large, and what little we know of it is of a very recent date, Stephens's and Leopold von Buch's works being not much more than a quarter of a century old, while Bayard Taylor's lively sketches in the "New York Tribune" are almost wet still, and not yet complete.
An' for Cap'n Tom an' Shiloh. God'll provide, Jack God'll provide!" Bonaparte lay on the little front porch the loafing place which opened into Billy Buch's bar-room. Apparently, he was asleep and basking in the warm Autumn sunshine. In reality he was doing his star trick and one which could have originated only in the brains of a born genius.
I do not say that they are anterior to that formation, for since the publication of M. von Buch's observations on the Tyrol, we must no longer consider what is below, in space, as necessarily anterior, relatively to the epoch of its formation.
They are not yet extinct; for an eruption in 1730 destroyed a large number of villages, and covered with lava the most fertile tracts in the island, which at the time of Leopold von Buch's visit lay waste and destitute of herbage.
Among the objections which may be considered as fatal to Von Buch's doctrine of upheaval in these cases, I may state that a series of volcanic formations extending over an area six or seven miles in its shortest diameter, as in Palma, could not be accumulated in the form of lavas, tuffs, and volcanic breccias or agglomerates without producing a mountain as lofty as that which they now constitute.
The maps which accompany Von Buch's work are remarkably good, and were partly constructed by himself. The island of Ascension, formed entirely of volcanic matter, rises from a depth of 2000 fathoms in the very centre of the Atlantic. As described by Darwin, the central and more elevated portions are formed of trachytic matter, with obsidian and laminated ash beds.
Phillips "Lardner's Encyclop." volume 2 page 115 quotes Von Buch's statement, that augitic porphyry ranges parallel to, and is found constantly at the base of, great chains of mountains. Humboldt, also, has remarked the frequent occurrence of trap-rock, in a similar position; of which fact I have observed many examples at the foot of the Chilian Cordillera.
From below it resembles nothing so much as a cone of dirty brown cassonade, and travellers are justified in calling it a sugarloaf. I can hardly rest satisfied with Von Buch's description. 'Teyde is a pointed tower surrounded by a ditch and a circular chain of bastions.
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