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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We Endeavoured To Get Out Of This Bay By The Pass Which Separates
Alegranza From Montana Clara, And Through Which We Had Easily
Entered To Land At The Northern Point Of Graciosa.
The wind having
fallen, the currents drove us very near a rock, on which the sea
broke with violence, and which is noted in the old charts under the
name of Hell, or Infierno.
As we examined this rock at the distance
of two cables' length, we found that it was a mass of lava three or
four toises high, full of cavities, and covered with scoriae
resembling coke. We may presume that this rock,* (* I must here
observe, that this rock is noted on the celebrated Venetian chart
of Andrea Bianco, but that the name of Infierno is given, as in the
more ancient chart of Picigano, made in 1367, to Teneriffe, without
doubt because the Guanches considered the peak as the entrance into
hell. In the same latitudes an island made its appearance in 1811.)
which modern charts call the West Rock (Roca del Oeste), was raised
by volcanic fire; and it might heretofore have been much higher;
for the new island of the Azores, which rose from the sea at
successive periods, in 1638 and 1719, had reached 354 feet when it
totally disappeared in 1723, to the depth of 480 feet. This opinion
on the origin of the basaltic mass of the Infierno is confirmed by
a phenomenon, which was observed about the middle of the last
century in these same latitudes.
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