a

a

caumene.

sider how far the descriptions given of either, or both of these monsters, correspond with the hypothesis as to their being more especially intended as personifications of volcanic action.

The account given by Apollodorus is perhaps the most circumstantial, and agrees very well with that of Hesiod, the earliest writer, except Homer, by whom Typhon or Typhæus is mentioned.

This mythologist describes him as surpassing in size and force all the children of Earth; he was taller than all the mountains, his head often touched the stars ; his arms stretched, the one to the setting, the other to the rising of the sun. The serpents, which were twisted round his thighs, rose to his head, and sent forth a horrible hissing ; fire gleamed from his eyes; he hurled stones to heaven with a loud and hollow poise (ueta συριγμων ομου και βοης); surges of fire boiled up from his mouth (πολλη εκ του στοματος εξεβρασε ζαλη).

How well this corresponds both with the structure and phænomena of a volcanic mountain, I consid it needless to point out, and shall therefore proceed to mention the spots in which the scene of the monster's adventures are laid; for, as in the many instances where these have been explored their nature is found to be volcanic, there seems a reasonable presumption that the same may be the condition of such as have not been examined.

Now Apollodorus mentions that Typhon was born in Cilicia, where we know of the existence of an extensive volcanic district called the Catace

When pursued by Jupiter, he fled to the neighbourhood of Mount Casius on the borders of the Lake Serbonis, near the Pelusian branch of the Nile. What the nature of this lake and of the mountain near it may be, I have not been able to ascertain. Jablonski however says, that the lake has a great affinity to the Dead Sea, which seems to owe its existence to a volcanic eruption. Maillet, in his Description de l'Égypte, p. 129, says, that the Egyptians got their bitumen for embalming from thence, and not, as is generally supposed, from the Dead Sea. The word (Ser) in Coptic, it is said, means to sprinkle, and (Bon) fætid; and Manetho says, that the lake in his time emitted hot exhalations.

One of the cities, called Typhonia, formerly existed there, and the Egyptians called the lake Tupovos ekTvoal. (Plutarch, Vit. Ant. p. 917.) It must however be confessed, that the pestilential vapours

which arose from the water may alone have caused it to be considered the abode of Typhon, and that with regard to the particular passage referred to commentators are not agreed, for Heyne proposes to substitute, for Casius, Caucasus, where there was a rock which went by the name of Typhonian. It is indeed not improbable that the latter may be the true reading, as it appears that volcanos actually exist there* ; or if we suppose that the mountain alluded to was Demavend, which stands near the famous Caucasiæ portæ, and therefore may perhaps have been viewed by the ancients as belonging to that chain, the Typhæus of the Greeks would then be the Zohag of the Zend-avesta, confined, according to the Persian mythology, under their volcano, as the Grecian monster was under Etna or Cumæt.

The other places mentioned by Apollodorus as the scene of these adventures are, Mount Hæmus in Thrace, so called from his blood which was * See p. 367, et seq.

† See p. 377.

a

there spilt; the peninsula of Pallene; and Mount Etna; but others have mentioned Lydia, Phrygia and Bæotia, as the spots where he was finally vanquished. (See Tzetzes, Scholia in Lycophron.)

Homer, as I have already stated, makes the Arimæan mountains (which perhaps may have been those near the Dead Sea*) the bed of Typhæus; and it is worth remarking, that neither that poet nor Hesiod alludes to Mount Etna as the abode of the monster, as Pindar and other later writers have done. This may be considered as an additional proof that this volcano was not in action about the period at which they lived. Now we have abundant proofs of volcanic action in most parts of Asia Minor, and particularly in the provinces of Lydia, Phrygia and Ciliciat; such are the extinct volcanos near Smyrna and Scandaroon, the Plutonium, or Corycian Cave, noticed by Strabo and re-discovered by Chandler, aud the destructive earthquakes so common throughout that country; we have accounts likewise of a mud-eruption in the Lelantic fields near Chalcis in Eubæa, which, if it was not itself of a volcanic nature, indicates, like the phænomena of Macaluba in Sicily, the accumulation of materials brought together by previous volcanic agency. It remains to be seen whether the same holds good with regard to the other spots alluded to, viz. the Lake Serbonis, the peninsula of Pallene, and Mount Ilæmus in Thrace. I believe the Ceraunian mountains are also mentioned as the seat of Typhon, but this has arisen from a lambent flame which still plays on the summit of some of them, arising from the escape of an inflammable gas, as on the top of the Apennines between Florence and Bolognaß. The same seems to be the case with regard to the dekopupov delas mentioned as occurring on the top of Parnassus.

I cannot close this note without pointing out the curious coincidence of names between those places in Asia and in Europe, noticed either as the abode of Typhon, or as the site of igneous phænomena. EUROPE.

ASIA. Nysa, one of the peaks on Nysa in Cilicia, the spot where Mount Parnassus noted for the Typhæus was struck with lightflame that emanated from its ning. summit.

а

Corycian Cave, on Mount Par

Corycian Cave in Cilicia, where Jupiter was confined when vanquished by the monster. It was noted for its Plutonium, or a Grotto del Cane like that near Naples.

EUROPE. Inarime, now called Ischia, under which island Typhæus is said by Virgil to be oppressed. Its other name was Pithecusa, from the Apes which abounded there (Ttcônkol), and the name Inarime was probably derived from the same cause, as we are told that Arimi in the Etruscan language signified Apes.

ASIA. The Arimaan mountains, mentioned by Homer as the bed of Typhon, the Ta Apipa, are placed by some in Cilicia, by others in Syria. There is no doubt however as to the existence in the former country of mountains that went by that name, and though they probably derived it from being peopled by Syrians, the descendants of Aram, yet it is a singular coincidence, that Apes were sacrificed in a temple of Diana that stood in this country. (See Strabo.)

Page 412.

Nicobar Islands. It would appear from a geographical sketch of the Nicobar Islands just published at Copenhagen by Dr. Rink, the naturalist to the Danish Exploring ship, the Galatea, that the volcanic band traced from Sumatra to Chittagong does not include this group, which consists of coral-reefs, although the island Bambuka, from its form, has all the appearance of being a crater.

Page 436. On the Geological Structure of Kerguelen's Land. Since this work went to press, the publication of Sir James Ross's Voyage of Discovery has made known to us more of the physical structure of Kerguelen's Island than had been previously explored.

It appears by the report given by Mr. M'Cormick, the surgeon of the Erebus, that the northern extremity of the island visited by the expedition was entirely of volcanic origin, composed of trap rocks disposed in a series of nearly horizontal terraces, consisting of prismatic basalt passing into greenstone, and of various modifications of amygdaloid and porphyry, often intersected by dykes.

Several conical hills with crater-shaped summits appear to have been volcanic vents. The most remarkable feature is the occurrence of fossil wood and coal imbedded in the igneous rocks. The wood is often much silicified, and of large size. The coal is slaty, of a brownish-black colour, and a fracture like wood-coal. One bed in Cumberland Bay (north-west coast) is two feet thick, with a slaty fracture and dull brownish-black colour, covered over by amygdaloidal greenstone.

The point most worthy of remark is the former luxuriant growth of timber-trees in this inhospitable climate, where there is now the utmost paucity of vegetation, and not even a shrub is to be seen.

a

Page 513.

Cacciatore's Seismometer. It may not be emiss to append a drawing of a Seismometer of very simple construction, invented by Professor Cacciatore of Palermo, which, according to Frederic Hoffman, has been much used in registering the direction, and even in some degree the intensity, of the earthquakes that occur in Sicily.

The instrument consists of a flat circular dish of wood with a very smooth bottom, and about ten inches in diameter, surrounded with a rim in which eight holes are bored at equal distances apart.

Outside of the rim is a kind of circular projection somewhat curved, and with eight grooves corresponding with the eight holes bored in the rim. Underneath the lower extremity of each groove a little cup is placed, and the whole rests upon a pedestal in such a way as only to be moved by an earthquake affecting the locality.

The upper part of the dish is filled with mercury up to the level of the holes bored in the rim surrounding its margin; so that in whatever direction the elevatory shock occurs, the mercury will flow out into the cup standing opposite to it.

The following is a sketch of the instrument :

a

Page 634.

On Paroxysmal Actions. In addition to Mr. Hopkins, Sir Roderick Murchison, and other professed geologists, I may cite the authority of Dr. Whewell in favour of the doctrine of paroxysmal or sudden elevation as applied to the explanation of the great Northern Drift.

The transfer of so large a body of matter over so vast an area he regards as an irresistible evidence of paroxysmal action.

“As no gradual or minute action could move the masses in question through a yard of space, no accumulation of such action, through any amount of time, could distribute the masses through the great distances which the northern drift has traversed, and spread them over the vast spaces which that formation occupies. The distribution of the northern drift belongs to a period when other causes operated than those which are now in action.”Quarterly Journ. of the Geol. Society for August 1847.

Page 652

On the Origin of the Carbonic Acid discharged from Volcanos. In his recently published work, entitled “ Lehrbuch der Chemischen und Physikalischen Geologie,’ Prof. Bischof has entered at length into the subject of the evolution of carbonic acid from the interior of the earth. He is entirely opposed to the idea of its being derived from the combustion of carbonaceous matters in the interior of the earth, or from the products of animal or vegetable decay. He regards it, as I myself have done, due rather to the action of silica upon earthy and alkaline carbonates, by which carbonic acid is disengaged and silicates are produced. Nevertheless he does not suppose the carbonic acid to be immediately discharged from the lava, but rather to be entangled within its tough and viscous substance so long as the latter continues in a semifluid condition, being subsequently emitted as each part becomes solid and begins to crack. This view is entirely conformable to my own observations on the lava of Vesuvius in 1834 (see page 229), with regard to the evolution of muriatic acid, muriate of ammonia and steam from the cracks and crevices of the semi-molten mass, and is perhaps rendered more conceivable from the fact that carburetted hydrogen gas in a condensed state is found to be confined within minute cells in the salt of Wieliczka, from which it escapes with a succession of little reports, when the salt is immersed in water, as fast as the solution of the latter is effected. It may moreover explain the evolution of carbonic acid taking place, not at the time of a volcanic eruption, but at one subsequent to it, when the lava begins to cool, and the proportion of lime commonly present in lava would, if it had previously existed as a carbonate, have supplied carbonic acid enough to account for the mofettes that occur in their respective districts.

а

Page 654.
Reply to Professor Bischof's Further Reasons against the Chemical Theory

of Volcanos.
[Prof. Bischof's paper may be se 1 entire in the Edinburgh New Philosophical

Journal, vol. xxx.] First Objection.—According to the chemical theory, the intense heat of lavas would arise from chemical processes supposed to be taking place. Now no supposable amount of chemical action could engender so much heat as is here assumed.

Reply.If volcanic action arise from chemical processes, it follows necessarily that the latter must be commensurate to the extent to which the former prevails ; and if it consist in the oxidation of the bases of those bodies which are presented to us as the products of the operations which take place, there would surely be no want of materials for producing a chemical action capable of bringing the lavas, &c. ejected into a state of fusion, for the heat must always bear a constant ratio to the amount of lava generated, or, in other words, to the weight of inflammable matter oxidated. The whole objection therefore resolves into the former one so often before discussed, viz. the probability of such chemical action having taken place.