Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 4, 2025
In spite of the very high temperature of the sulphurous fumes emitted from various crevices on the edge of the Solfatara, it is possible, thanks to the complete dryness of the fumes, to crawl a little way into the interior of these crevices.
A few years back, the volcano used to send up showers of ashes, and even large stones; but now it has sunk to the condition of a mere solfatara, sending out, from two crevices in the floor, great volumes of sulphurous acid and steam, with a loud roaring noise.
Hence we may conclude what must be the heat in this solfatara at the depth of thirty or forty fathoms. The sulphur reduced into vapour is condensed into fine crystals, which however are not equal in size to those M. Dolomieu brought from Sicily. They are semi-diaphanous octahedrons, very brilliant on the surface, and of a conchoidal fracture.
With its white plume it is a constant quantity in the landscape: one sees it from every point of view; and we had been scarcely anywhere that volcanic remains, or signs of such action, a thin crust shaking under our feet, as at Solfatara, where blasts of sulphurous steam drove in our faces, did not remind us that the whole ground is uncertain, and undermined by the subterranean fires that have Vesuvius for a chimney.
The weird silence of the jungle is emphasised by an occasional cry of a wild bird, flitting among the tall tree tops, or the crash of a bough, dragged down by the weight of some climbing rattan. A walk up a boulder-strewn slope reaches the old crater, or Solfatara, almost surrounded by steep walls of rock.
The feldsparry lavas of the Peak, of a much less black tinge than those of Arso in the island of Ischia, whiten at the edge of the crater from the effect of the acid vapours; but internally they are not found to be colourless like that of the feldsparry lavas of the Solfatara at Naples, which perfectly resemble the trappean porphyries at the foot of Chimborazo.
In numerous places thick clouds of vapor burst from the ground, with a strong smell of sulphurated water. This solfatara must formerly have been much more active than it is now. The ravine, which has been formed by its destruction of the rock, and is full of lofty heaps of débris, may be one thousand feet in breadth, and quite five times as long.
Were it not for the safety-valves of Vesuvius and Solfatara, the whole intermediate region, with its towns and villages and swarming population, would be blown into the air by the vehement forces that are struggling beneath. It was this elemental war fiercer, we have reason to believe, in classic times than now that gave rise to the religious fables of the poets.
Its surface, which, by reason of the very flat banks, is protected against the weather, I found to be about five hundred paces long and one hundred broad. From the elevation of the solfatara, a rather large fresh-water lake, surrounded by wooded mountains, is seen through a gap, exactly south, which is named Jaruanan.
It exhibits the same evidences of recent volcanic activity as the neighbourhood of Lakes Tartarus and Solfatara on the way to Tivoli.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking