United States or Brazil ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
A little farther to the eastward is Lanzarote, which is very mountainous, possessing a volcano of its own, where a violent eruption took place not very long ago, when a stream of lava from two hundred to three hundred yards broad spread out into the sea like a river, the floating pumice-stone being picked up by passing vessels miles away.
In 1399, we are told, certain Andalusians, Biscayans, Guipuzcoans, with the consent of Don Enrique, fitted out an expedition of five vessels, and making a descent on the island of Lanzarote, one of the Canaries, took captive the King and Queen, and one hundred and seventy of the islanders.
Von Buch has described a compact limestone at Lanzarote, which seems perfectly to resemble the stalagmitic deposition just mentioned: it coats pebbles, and in parts is finely oolitic: it forms a far-extended layer, from one inch to two or three feet in thickness, and it occurs at the height of 800 feet above the sea, but only on that side of the island exposed to the violent north-western winds.
On the next day the jury-rigged rudder carried away again, and was again repaired, but it was decided to try and make the island of Lanzarote in the Canaries, and to get another caravel to replace the Pinta.
I also heard him tell the same young gentleman a queer yarn about a buried treasure which is supposed to be concealed near a little cove on the southern extremity of the island, called `Janubio. The story goes that, in the beginning of the century I think the navigator said it was in the year 1804, but I am not quite certain the crew of a South American Spanish treasure ship, bound to Cadiz from Lima with produce and which had besides over two millions of dollars in chests aboard, mutinied, and murdered their captain and officers; the rascals then making off in the long boat with this treasure towards an island, which, from the description given, must have been either Lanzarote or one of the Salvages.
On the next day the jury-rigged rudder carried away again, and was again repaired, but it was decided to try and make the island of Lanzarote in the Canaries, and to get another caravel to replace the Pinta.
Icod of the Vines, or Orotava itself, port and villa, might some day wake to such a day as that which has smitten St Pierre in fiery Martinique. Once all the quiet seas were unbroken by their seven islands Hierro, Palma, Gomera, Teneriffe, Grand Canary, Fuerteventura, and Lanzarote lay beneath the waters of the smiling ocean.
Under the grand altar, with other dignitaries of the cathedral, are the remains of the learned and amiable historian of the isles, Canon Jose de Viera y Clavigo, born at Lanzarote, poet, 'elegant translator' of Buffon, lexicographer, and honest man. Directly facing the cathedral-facade is the square, headed by the Ayuntamiento, an Ionic building which would make a first-rate hotel.
In 1585 Murād ventured out into the Atlantic out of sight of land, which no Algerine had ever dared to do before, and picking up a reinforcement of small brigantines at Salē, descended at daybreak upon Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, sacked the town without opposition, and carried off the governor's family and three hundred captives.
The albite in these lavas is in a similar condition with the leucite of Vesuvius, and with the olivine, described by Von Buch, as projecting in great balls from the basalt of Lanzarote. I obtained specimens from the actual surface, and from a depth of four feet, but they differed in no respect.
Word Of The Day