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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The whole of the mountainous part of the kingdom of Quito may be
considered as an immense volcano, occupying more than seven hundred
square leagues of surface, and throwing out flames by different
cones, known under the particular denominations of Cotopaxi,
Tungurahua, and Pichincha.
The group of the Canary Islands is
situated on the same sort of submarine volcano. The fire makes its
way sometimes by one and sometimes by another of these islands.
Teneriffe alone contains in its centre an immense pyramid
terminating in a crater, and throwing out, from one century to
another, lava by its flanks. In the other islands, the different
eruptions have taken place in various parts; and we nowhere find
those isolated mountains to which the volcanic effects are
confined. The basaltic crust, formed by ancient volcanoes, seems
everywhere undermined; and the currents of lava, seen at Lancerota
and Palma, remind us, by every geological affinity, of the eruption
which took place in 1301 at the island of Ischia, amid the tufas of
Epomeo.
The exclusively lateral action of the peak of Teneriffe is a
geological phenomenon, the more remarkable as it contributes to
make the mountains which are backed by the principal volcano appear
isolated. It is true, that in Etna and Vesuvius the great flowings
of lava do not proceed from the crater itself, and that the
abundance of melted matter is generally in the inverse ratio of the
height of the opening whence the lava is ejected.
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