Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 88 of 407 - First - Home
The Peak Of Teyde Forms A Pyramidal Mass Like Etna, Tungurahua, And
Popocatepetl.
This physiognomic character is very far from being
common to all volcanoes.
We have seen some in the southern
hemisphere, which, instead of having the form of a cone or a bell,
are lengthened in one direction, having the ridge sometimes smooth,
and at others bristled with small pointed rocks. This structure is
peculiar to Antisana and Pichincha, two burning mountains of the
province of Quito; and the absence of the conic form ought never to
be considered as a reason excluding the idea of a volcanic origin.
I shall develop, in the progress of this work, some of the
analogies, which I think I have perceived between the physiognomy
of volcanoes and the antiquity of their rocks. It is sufficient to
state, generally speaking, that the summits, which are still
subject to eruptions of the greatest violence, and at the nearest
periods to each other, are SLENDER PEAKS of a conic form; that the
mountains with LENGTHENED SUMMITS, and rugged with small stony
masses, are very old volcanoes, and near being extinguished; and
that rounded tops, in the form of domes, or bells, indicate those
problematic porphyries, which are supposed to have been heated in
their primitive position, penetrated by vapours, and forced up in a
mollified state, without having ever flowed as real lithoidal
lavas. To the first class belong Cotopaxi, the peak of Teneriffe,
and the peak of Orizava in Mexico. In the second may be placed
Cargueirazo and Pichincha, in the province of Quito; the volcano of
Puracey, near Popayan; and perhaps also Hecla, in Iceland. In the
third and last we may rank the majestic figure of Chimborazo, and,
(if it be allowable to place by the side of that colossus a hill of
Europe,) the Great Sarcouy in Auvergne.
In order to form a more exact idea of the external structure of
volcanoes, it is important to compare their perpendicular height
with their circumference. This, however, cannot be done with any
exactness, unless the mountains are isolated, and rising on a plain
nearly on a level with the sea. In calculating the circumference of
the peak of Teneriffe in a curve passing through the port of
Orotava, Garachico, Adexe, and Guimar, and setting aside the
prolongations of its base towards the forest of Laguna, and the
north-east cape of the island, we find that this extent is more
than 54,000 toises. The height of the Peak is consequently one
twenty-eighth of the circumference of its basis. M. von Buch found
a thirty-third for Vesuvius; and, which perhaps is less certain, a
thirty-fourth for Etna.* (* Gilbert, Annalen der Physik B. 5 page
455. Vesuvius is 133,000 palmas, or eighteen nautical miles in
circumference. The horizontal distance from Resina to the crater is
3700 toises. Italian mineralogists have estimated the circumference
of Etna at 840,000 palmas, or 119 miles. With these data, the ratio
of the height to the circumference would be only a seventy-second;
but I find on tracing a curve through Catania, Palermo, Bronte, and
Piemonte, only 62 miles in circumference, according to the best
maps.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 88 of 407
Words from 45415 to 45947
of 211363