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Peak of Teneriffe Its Crater Eruption of Chahorra Palma Great Caldera Lancerote Great Eruption Sudden Death Fuego, Cape de Verde Islands Cotopaxi Its Appearance Great Eruptive Force Tunguragua Great Eruption of Mud and Water Fish thrown out Quito Its Overthrow Pichinca Humboldt's Ascent Narrow Escape Antisana Sangay Rancagua Chillan Masaya
The obstructed craters appear to be extinguished volcanoes; but we may presume, that, while Cotopaxi or Tunguragua have only one or two eruptions in the course of a century, the fire is not less continually active under the town of Quito, under Pichincha and Imbabura.
This lake has the honour of giving birth to the mighty stream: its waters forming the River Tunguragua, which, roaring and foaming in a series of cataracts and rapids through rocky valleys, flows northerly till it reaches the frontier of Ecuador.
Vincent, Cotopaxi, or Tunguragua, resounded from afar, like a cannon of immense magnitude, the noise ought to increase in the inverse ratio of the distance: but observations prove, that this augmentation does not take place.
Indeed, so terrible was the convulsion of the ground, which lasted four minutes, that the cities of Riobamba and Quero were reduced to heaps of ruins. Then the base of Tunguragua was rent, and from numerous apertures there were poured out streams of water and mud, the latter gathering in the valleys to the depth of 600 feet.
Those which for months preceded the upheaval of the volcano of Jorullo, will recur to your remembrance. For about a month before the great mud eruption from Tunguragua on 4th February 1797, already described, there proceeded from the interior of that mountain noises of the most fearful kind. These would occur suddenly in the midst of perfect silence.
We could see far off its snow-white dome, free of clouds, towering into the deep blue sky, many thousand feet above the ocean; while on the other side its brother, Tunguragua, shoots up above the surrounding heights, but, in spite of its ambitious efforts, has failed to reach the same altitude I might speak of Antisana, and many other lofty heights with hard names? but I fancy that a fair idea may be formed of that wonderful region of giant mountains from the description I have already given.
Cotopaxi, Tunguragua, Antisana, and Pichincha, are on this same raised ground. They have different names, but they are merely separate summits of the same volcanic mass. The fire issues sometimes from one, sometimes from another of these summits.
The globe, it may be said, is agitated with the greater force, in proportion as the surface has a smaller number of funnels communicating with the caverns of the interior. At Naples and at Messina, at the foot of Cotopaxi and of Tunguragua, earthquakes are dreaded only when vapours and flames do not issue from the craters.
After the little gap of the Isthmus of Panama, it begins again in Quito, the very country which has just been shaken, and in which stand the huge volcanos Chimborazo, Pasto, Antisana, Cotopaxi, Pichincha, Tunguragua, smooth cones from 15,000 to 20,000 feet high, shining white with snow, till the heat inside melts it off, and leaves the cinders of which the peaks are made all black and ugly among the clouds, ready to burst in smoke and fire.
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