a In 887, in the district of Ouey, a mountain fell, and the sun was darkened by the dust. In 1568, at Yo-ting-Hien, the earth opened in many places, and torrents of water and black sand were ejected. In 1599 a.d. a mountain sunk into the earth, and a lake was formed in its place. Some of these catastrophes perhaps have no reference to anything of a volcanic nature, but it may be well to take a record of them, in order that, now when the intercourse with this hitherto sealed portion of the globe is gradually increasing, attention may be directed to this class of phænomena. Klaproth likewise, in Humboldt's 'Central Asia' (Appendix), remarks, that although no active volcanos are known in China, yet that the wells of fire, Ho-tsing, and the mountains of fire, Ho-chan, observed in several parts of the provinces of Yun-nan, Syn-tchhouan, Kouang-u and Chansi, the first two the most western in all China, and therefore very far removed from the sea, may have some connexion with the same cause. The wells of fire however would seem to be brine springs accompanied by an emission of inflammable gas, and although very curious, have no direct reference to the subject of this volume. Of the mountains of fire, one on the border of Thibet is but little known. Another, the most to the south, is in long. 108°.25 east of Paris, and 23°.27 of north lat. Flames are visible from it at night. Several mountains of fire are found in the province bounded on the north by the great wall. Ammoniacal vapours as well as flames are said to be exhaled from it. More to the north-east, in east long. 1100-50, north lat. 40°-5, there is a mountain from which proceeds a great heat and a constant noise; a boiling spring adjoins it. The other notices so evidently refer to the combustion of coal and other pseudo-volcanic phænomena, that I do not think it necessary to detail them. CHAPTER XXIII. VOLCANOS OF KAMTSCHATKA AND THE CHINESE SEAS. Kamtschatka.-Aleutian Islands.-Kurule Islands.-Japan, viz. in Matsmai-Niphon-Kiu-siu.-Islands adjacent-Loo-Choo-Formosa. BEFORE arriving at any volcanos in Asia in a state of undoubted activity at the present time, we must resort to the north-eastern extremity of that continent, namely to the peninsula of Kamtschatka. A recent traveller * describes this tract of land "as a confused heap of granite blocks of various heights, thickly piled together, whose pointed, jagged forms bear testimony to the tremendous war of elements amidst which they must have burst from the bowels of the earth." Nor is the struggle yet ended, as the smoking and burning of volcanos, and frequent shocks of earthquakes sufficiently intimate. The mountains, with their glaciers and volcanos emitting columns of fire and smoke from amidst fields of ice, afford a picturesque contrast with the beautiful green of the valleys. A most singular and indescribably splendid effect is produced when the crystal rocks on the western coast are illuminated by the sun, their whole refulgent surface reflecting his rays in every various tint of the most brilliant colours, resembling the diamond mountains of fairy-land, while the neighbouring rocks of quartz shine like masses of solid gold. Kraskeninikoff, the Russian navigator, in his history of that province, translated into French in 1767, makes mention of three active vents, besides two that only emitted smoke, and two others which appeared extinct. The active volcanos, according to him, are: 1. Awachinskit, lat. 53°17, north of the bay of Awatscha, * Kotzebue, Voyage round the World. For the relative position of these volcanos, see the Map at the end of the volume. a mountain, the height of which is estimated at 8199 Paris feet. It had an eruption in 1737, followed by a tremendous earthquake, during which the sea overflowed the land, and afterwards receded so far as to leave its bed, between the first and second of the Kurule islands, dry. It is called by Capt. Beechey, Peak Koselskoi. Ernest Hoffman *, who accompanied Kotzebue's expedition, ascended it; and Postels and Lenz, who were attached to that of Captain Lutkè, made two excursions to it in 1827 and 1828. They found its base composed of transition slates and greywacke, in highly inclined beds, associated with diorites. Their direction is N.W. and S.E.; their dip 50° to the S.W. These rocks extend nearly to the uppermost limit of trees, beyond which trachyte covers the surface in large blocks, until they reached a kind of plain entirely composed of lapilli, into which they sank up to their knees. Rising however from it, at short distances apart, are a great number of little cones, about twelve feet in height and thirty in circumference, each of which gives out sulphuretted hydrogen. From this spot we still further ascend a very precipitous wall of trachyte, which continues to the summit, where there is a crater of vast size continually emitting smoke. 2. Tulbatchinski, which rises to a height of 7410 feet above the sea, situated on a tongue of land between the rivers of Kamtschatka and Tulbatchik. Its first eruption took place in 1739, and caused the country for fifty wersts round to be covered with ashes. 3. Kamtschatka Mountain, otherwise called Klutschew or Kliutshiwsk, the loftiest in the country, being 14,656 Paris feet above the sea, according to the late measurements of Erman, and 15,510 according to Captain Lutkè. It stands in lat. 56o3, long. 1589.23. It had an eruption in 1737, the ° same year in which the mountain Awachinski was in activity. It continued for a week to throw out streams of lava with great vehemence. Since that time it usually ejects ashes and scoriæ three or four times a year. Erman saw this volcano in full activity; a stream of lava, I am indebted for these additional particulars to Von Buch's description of the Canary Islands, which have spared me much trouble in consulting the original authorities, a which gave a vivid light during the night, proceeded from a point about 700 feet below the summit, flowing down its north-west side. Judging from the rocks which Erman collected from the mountain, he considered them to differ from those of the other Kamtschatka volcanos, and to consist of dolerite, as being made up of labradorite and augite, the former in large crystals. The currents of lava are very frequent, and the vast masses of ice which they meet often for a time arrest their downward progress, until the dyke being at length broken through by the heat and pressure of the incandescent mass, the whole is precipitated from the summit with a noise audible at a distance of 100 wersts from the spot. Much sulphur is disengaged from the fumaroles and deposited on the snow, which on melting carries it down to the foot of the mountain. This volcano is connected with another dome-shaped mass 13,000 feet in height, the two together forming a ridge from S.W. to N.E. To this list, Erman and others have added considerably, enumerating in all no less than thirteen active volcanos in this peninsula. Of these the two most remarkable not already mentioned are : 1. The volcano called by English navigators Awachinski or Awatscha, lat. 55°19, long. 1560.20, which must be distinguished from the one already mentioned, and called by the same name by Kraskeninikoff. It was estimated by Captain Beechey at 10,747 French feet, and is said to be composed of trachyte to its very base. . 2. Schewelutsch, lat. 56o.39, long. 159o.9, estimated by Erman at 9904 feet. It has several peaks, but no crater was discernible. The rock of which it is composed, presents a remarkable resemblance to that of the volcanic cones of the Andes, consisting of a mixture of small grains of glassy albite, and of long black and brilliant crystals of hornblende, im. bedded in a grey or reddish basis. Abich considers two species of felspar to be present; the one, albite, constituting more than 70 per cent. of the whole; the other, one of the bisilicates, either andesin or oligoclase (see page 13). He regards the rock as a kind of link between andesite and dolerite, and therefore places it under the head of Trachytedolerite. The valley of Jelowka, which is a prolongation of the great valley of Kamtschatka, is the boundary-line of this volcanic rock. It is here succeeded by clay and talcose slate, with many beds of quartz rock, diorite and serpentine, the whole much inclined. There is therefore a complete separation between this igneous formation and that to which the former volcanos belong. From Kamtschatka we may, to all appearance, trace a line of volcanic operations along the chain of the Aleutian Islands to the peninsula of Alaschka in North America, where indications of the same kind are said to occur. Behring's Island is the connecting link, and occurs in the same parallel nearly as Schewelutsch, the most northern of the Kamtschatka range. In the Aleutian group, Von Buch enumerates nine active vents, and on the peninsula of Alaschka, two; the most eastern being on the north coast of Cook's Inlet. Among the Aleutian group, Langsdorff has described a rock near the island of Unalaschka, 3000 feet in height, consisting of trachyte, which made its appearance in 1796, and seems to have been thrown up all at once from the bottom of the ocean, and not to have been formed by successive accumulations of ejected materials *. In 1796 it was only two miles and a half in circumference and 350 feet in height; but in 1806, when it was still burning, it had so greatly increased in size, as to require six hours to go round it in a boat, and five to ascend it. It appears from Otto Von Kotzebue's "Travels,' that the geological structure of the surrounding rocks is basaltic, though they possess a greater degree of hardness, and resist the action of the weather more completely than basalt usually does. This he attributes to the quartz and augite they contain. Trachyte and porphyry-slate however appear, from Moritz Von Engelhardt's account, to occur in Unalaschka f. • See Largsdorff's Voyages, vol. ii. |