Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Several Hills Resembled The Monte
Novo, Near Naples, Or Those Hillocks Of Scoria And Ashes Which The
Opening Earth Threw Up In A Single Night At The Foot Of The Volcano
Of Jorullo, In Mexico.
In fact, the abbe Viera relates, that in
1730, more than half the island changed its appearance.
The great
volcano, which we have just mentioned, and which the inhabitants
call the volcano of Temanfaya, spread desolation over a most
fertile and highly cultivated region: nine villages were entirely
destroyed by the lavas. This catastrophe had been preceded by a
tremendous earthquake, and for several years shocks equally violent
were felt. This last phenomenon is so much the more singular, as it
seldom happens after an eruption, when the elastic vapours have
found vent by the crater, after the ejection of the melted matter.
The summit of the great volcano is a rounded hill, but not entirely
conic. From the angles of altitude which I took at different
distances, its absolute elevation did not appear to exceed three
hundred toises. The neighbouring hills, and those of Alegranza and
Isla Clara, were scarcely above one hundred or one hundred and
twenty toises. We may be surprised at the small elevation of these
summits, which, viewed from the sea, wear so majestic a form; but
nothing is more uncertain than our judgment on the greatness of
angles, which are subtended by objects close to the horizon. From
illusions of this sort it arose, that before the measures of
Messrs.
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