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What we learn from observation is, that in craters which are still burning, sulphur is very rare; while all the ancient volcanoes end in becoming sulphur-pits.
There's a railroad up the pass now, and I hear the city has trolleys and electric lights, but at that time it hadn't much excitement except internal rumblings and explosions, meaning it had politics and volcanoes.
He even went so far as to describe the scene of destruction, when all the elements would be put in motion to destroy mankind, when volcanoes would deluge the land with liquid fire, and earthquakes shake and shatter the world to its centre! The book was written in a style well calculated to perplex, astonish, or terrify the readers, especially those who were not well stocked with intelligence.
Altogether, no less than 150 active volcanoes exist in the chain of islands which stretch from Behring's Straits down to the Antarctic circle; and if we include the volcanoes on Indian and Pacific Islands which appear to be situated on lines branching from this particular band, we shall not be wrong in the assertion that this great system of volcanic mountains includes at least one half of the habitually active vents of the globe.
A broad river wound through the midst between isolated volcanoes, curling with smoke, and thick forests of a sable hue, or expanded into marshy lakes half lost in brakes of grisly reeds, on the margin of which living monsters were plashing in the mud, or soaring into the air on dusky pinions.
Mount Taylor, which stands over the divide on the drainage of the Rio Grande del Norte, is one of the most imposing of the dead volcanoes of this region. Still later eruptions of lava are found here and there, and in the present valleys and canyons sheets of black basalt are often found. These are known as coulees, and sometimes from these coulees cinder cones arise.
The Lake Agnano is the site of an ancient volcanic crater, and on its margin is situated the Grotto del Cane, so famous for the deadly vapours it exhales. These consist of carbonic acid gas, in combination with watery vapour. This celebrated Grotto is thus described, in his work on volcanoes, by Dr. Daubeny, who visited the spot:
I stalked slowly and cautiously from summit to summit, now over flaming volcanoes, now snow-crowned peaks, often breathing with difficulty, when, reaching Mount Saint Elias, I sprang across Behring's Straits to Asia. I followed the western shores in their manifold windings, and examined with especial care to ascertain which of the islands were accessible to me.
We extract from Dr. Robert Bonney's "Our Earth and its Story" a description of these closely-related events. "The disturbances originated on the island of Krakatoa, with eruptions of red hot stones and ashes, and by noon next day Semeru, the largest of the Javanese volcanoes, was reported to be belching forth flames at an alarming rate.
He was represented trampling on the body of a boa constrictor of the first quality, in the skin of which he was dressed; at his back were his bow and arrows; his right hand rested on an uprooted pine-tree; he stood in a desert between two volcanoes; at his feet was a lake of magnitude; the distance lowered with an approaching tornado; but a lucky flash of lightning revealed the range of the Andes and both oceans.
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