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It would be impossible in a work of this kind to attempt a detailed description of the Eifel volcanoes, often of a very complex character and obscure physical history, as in the case of the basin of Rieden, where tufaceous deposits, trachytic and basaltic lavas and crater-cones, are confusedly intermingled, so that I shall confine my remarks to the deservedly famous district of the Laacher See, which I had an opportunity of personally visiting some years since.
The district around the Laacher See is covered by laminated ejecta of the old volcano, probably of subaërial origin, through which bosses of the fundamental slate peer up at intervals, while the surface is diversified by several truncated cones.
Stangrave has walked upon those hills, and stood upon the crater-lip of the great Moselkopf, and dreamed beside the Laacher See, beneath the ancient abbey walls; and his thoughts flit across the Moselle flats towards his ancient haunts, as he asks himself How long has that old Eifel lain in such soft sleep? How long ere it awake again?
Plan and Section of the Laacher See, a lake on the borders of the Eifel, occupying the crater of an old volcano. The Laacher See is a lake of an oval form, over an English mile in the shorter diameter, and surrounded by high banks of volcanic sand, gravel, and scoriæ, except on the east side, where cliffs of clay-slate, in a nearly vertical position, and striking nearly E.W., may be observed.
At the east side of the lake we find a stream of scoriaceous lava of a purple or reddish colour, highly vesicular, and containing crystals of mica; but the most important lava-stream is that which has taken a southerly direction from the crater of the Laacher See towards Nieder Mendig and Mayen, for a distance of about six miles.
The source of this mud is considered by Hibbert to have been the old volcano of the Lummerfeld, which, after becoming dormant, was filled with water, and thus became a lake. At a subsequent period, however, a fresh eruption took place near the edge of the lake, resulting in the remarkable ruptured crater known as the Kunksköpfe, which rises about four miles to the north of the Laacher See.
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