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The Brigantine, which is the highest part of this chain, raises itself in a very picturesque manner behind Brito and Tataraqual. It takes its name from the form of a very deep valley on the northern declivity, which resembles the interior of a ship. The summit of this mountain is almost bare of vegetation, and is flat like that of Mowna Roa, in the Sandwich Islands.
To make this narrative more intelligible, it will be necessary to describe briefly the position and general features of this volcano, which does not, like most others, spring from a cone, but has excavated for itself a bed in the side of Mowna Roa, which rises 14,000 feet above the level of the sea; it is about sixteen miles distant from the summit of the mountain, wherein is an enormous extinct crater, from which this is probably the outlet; it is 4000 feet above the level of the sea, and twenty miles from the nearest coast line.
The whole island, eighty-six miles long by seventy broad, and rising, as it does at Mowna Keah, more than 15,000 feet above the sea, would seem to have been formed by layers of lava imposed at different periods. Some of these have followed quickly on each other; while the thickness of soil, made up of vegetable mould and decomposed lava, indicates a long interval of repose between others.
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